MOB AND TOWN: Methods of misinforming the public!

FRIDAY, APRIL 23, 2021

In search of division and fear: We watched snatches of CNN for four hours last evening.

We started with Wolf Blitzer in the 6 P.M. Eastern hour and continued along from there. It's very hard to find the words to describe what we saw.

On the one hand, what we saw was grossly "irresponsible." But what we saw on CNN went several light-years past that.

In fairness, we only watched Anderson Cooper for a matter of moments. When he affected the familiar low voice designed to tell us how much he cares, we quickly flipped away and ventured over to to Fox.

At that destination, Tucker Carlson spent his first ten minutes playing tape of lunatic statements people have made on MSNBC in the past few days. 

Eventually, we hope to post examples of those statements. For today, we want to start with something we saw on CNN last evening during the 7 P.M. hour.

At 7 P.N., CNN airs Erin Burnett OutFront. The program's web site says this:

Designed to showcase Erin's unique style—casual, smart, and confident—OutFront stays ahead of the headlines, delivering a show that's in-depth and informative.

Few descriptions could be less accurate. The web site offers amazingly little videotape of Burnett's uniquely smart work, but it does offer an 11-minute videotape which bears this headline:

Erin Burnett's journey to find her roots

So it goes at this silly site. On balance, OutFront is a gong-show in the guise of a "cable news" TV program.

Last night, as we watched OutFront, we saw a model of the way people can get misinformed. Beyond that, we saw a model of the way people can get very scared.

We saw an example of corporate behavior which ought to have people frog-marched off to jail. Having said that, we'll also say this:

We know of no good way out of this growing mess. This mess afflicts the endless array of good, decent people found all over Our Town.

Last evening, the various stars of CNN were trying to make us think that they care about "racial justice." They were striking this pose very hard.

Tomorrow, we'll show you why we're disinclined to believe such representations, all across the mainstream press corps board. But last night, this posture led to a type of "news report" by CNN's Omar Jiminez.

Jiminez is 27 years old. Balancing that, he's conventionally telegenic.

Last night, he was pushing a dominant standard theme. That standard theme was Cops Gone Wild In a Very Particular Manner. 

As the evening unfolded, CNN would focus on one teen-aged shooting death, even as the channel disappeared other such deaths. Near the end of his report, Jiminez aired tape of a woman who made a striking statement. But at 7:05 P.M., he started his report with this lachrymose representation:

JIMENEZ (4/23/21): Sixteen-year-old Ma'Khia Bryant was shot and killed by Officer Nicholas Reardon after she appeared to lunge at another young woman with a knife.

In Elizabeth City, North Carolina, the morning after the Chauvin verdict, Andrew Brown Jr. was shot and killed by sheriff's deputies serving a warrant.

A repeated American pattern, leaving some fearful.

He started with one teen-aged death, then proceeded from there.

Jiminez didn't define the "repeated pattern" which was "leaving some fearful." By now, he doesn't have to do any such thing. 

By now, the official Storyline is strongly in place. Everyone knows what it is.

For the record, it's hardy surprising to hear that someone was shot and killed by police officers on the day after the Chauvin verdict. 

A CNN viewer might have gotten the impression that that fact was surprising. For better or worse, it isn't surprising. It doesn't even come close.

For better or worse, here are the facts. CNN, which works from emotion and human interest, rarely bothers reporting such facts:

Over the course of the past seven years, roughly three people per day have been shot and killed by police officers across the United States. We refer to the data compiled by the Washington Post's award-winning, but declining, Fatal Force web site.

Roughly three people per day get shot and killed by police officers in the United States! Below, we'll show you the way these killings have broken down by "race" over the past seven years—since Fatal Force began its work at the start of 2015.

At present, corporate entities like CNN are pursuing their corporate profits by discussing only one class of decedents in these fatal shootings. This is astoundingly incompetent and irresponsible journalistic behavior. But in the course of this corporate behavior, a lot of people are left extremely fearful—and may become extremely underinformed.

Good, decent people are left grossly misinformed. As Anderson Cooper takes part in this process, he adopts the familiar tone of voice which lets us know how much and how deeply he cares.

As noted, Jiminez started his presentation by referring to a "repeated pattern." He then played videotape of a "community member" voicing his fear of police.

The CNN transcript doesn't say what "community" was at issue. But as he continued, Jiminez spoke to a second person, a human rights activist from Minneapolis:

JIMENEZ: It's a pain reverberating across the country, especially in the Minneapolis area.

MEL REEVES, HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVIST (videotape): We can't even get an arrest from the last one. The questions for all my neighbors are, what are we going to do? And then, what is the government going to do to stop this once and for all? This is tiring. I'm a fairly old guy now. I've been doing this for a long time and it's the same story over and over and over again.

Mel Reeves is a good, decent person. "It's the same story over and over and over again," CNN viewers were told, though no one said exactly what the "story" actually was.

Soon, we got to the heart of the matter. At the heart if the matter we found a woman stating a strong impression, and we found a statement of fear:

JIMENEZ: What was this like? What are you going to remember most?

ELIZA WESLEY (video): I hope something good comes out of it. I really hope this is a changing point, a turning point. I hope Minnesota does the world proud.

JIMENEZ: There's a pride in concluding one fight, but also reminders of so many more that remain.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (video): We're going to do everything we got to do to keep the justice for us. For us. They see bad ill about us over here. But if it come to you and if you see the people, it gives you a whole different perspective. It does not happen to everybody, it happens to us. And we're going to do we got to do.

"It doesn't happen to everybody, it [only] happens to us." 

By "us," we take it as obvious that the speaker meant "black people." Without any question, that's the impression a viewer will get watching CNN. Also, that's the impression a person might get from other major news orgs within Our failing Town.

We were struck by what that woman said.

"It only happens to us," she said. And please remember:

It isn't just that the woman said it. Journalistically, here's the more significant fact—CNN chose to put that statement on the air, as the culmination of a prime time news report.

That woman stated her strong impression. Over the past ten years, that impression has been sold wherever the news orgs of Our Town have gone about the business of pretending that they care..

That said, does it only happen to one group of people? How accurate is that impression? We thought we'd do something you'll never see done on CNN:

We thought we'd go ahead and show you some actual data.

Jiminez started his report by acting as if it's surprising that someone was shot and killed by police the dat after the Chauvin verdict.

In fact, people are shot and killed by police on a very regular basis. But how about in Minnesota? Does it only happen to one group of people in that wobegone state?

According to the Fatal Force site, eight people have been shot and killed by police officers in Minnesota so far this year. Below, we're going to say their names.  Among thos eight names, you've heard exactly one:

Fatal shootings by police officers in Minnesota, 2021 (to date): 

Bradley Olsen, April 18

Daunte Wright, April 11

David Savela, February 27

Shannon Savela, February 27

David Conwell, February 25

Dominic Koch, February 21

Joseph Heroff, February 21
Brian Andren, January 8

You've heard the name of one decedent. That one decedent was "black." 

According to Fatal Force (and a bit of further research), the other seven were all "white." You haven't been told about them.

Does it really "only happen to us?" If we're talking about fatal shootings by police, the answer seems to be no. Indeed, a similar pattern obtained last year, although the rate of fatal shootings in Minnesota was substantially lower last year. 

Last year, only eight people were shot and killed throughout the course of the year. None of these names has ever been mentioned by CNN at all:

Fatal shootings by police officers in Minnesota, 2020:
Dolal Idd, December 30
Estavon Elioff, December 5
Anthony Legato, October 9
Kirby Hengel, September 29
Arlan Schultz, July 13
Austin Heights, April 18
Keith Haux, March 8
Kent Kruger, February 27 

According to Fatal Force, only the late Dolal Idd was "black." The other seven decedents were all "white."

It only happens to us, the citizen said—and CNN aired her comment. They didn't specify what she meant—but then, this is all novelization. This is preferred Storyline, Storyline all the way down.

Given the sloppy way Jiminez assembles his reports, there's no way to know what that woman actually meant. But we've been warning you about something for at least the past year:

Given the astonishing way news orgs in Our Town now perform their duties, we'll guess that many people have no idea about the actual state of play with regard to police shooting deaths. We say that because, under current protocols, Our Town's news orgs will only report "black" deaths:

They disappear all others.

They disappear Hispanic deaths. They disappear Asian-American and Native American deaths.

In recent years, the Washington Post has tried to call attention to a particularly egregious local shooting death involving a young man whose ancestry was Middle Eastern. 

That incident had it all. It had videotape of a plainly unnecessary shooting, and it had the plain appearance of subsequent police misconduct.

The Post tried and tried to start a discussion about that local incident. Our Town's "press corps" wasn't buying. Amazingly, but undeniably, deaths like that don't count. 

It's hard to believe that journalists can behave in so stupid a fashion. That said, the people in questions aren't really "journalists." As we'll briefly note below, it's not even clear that they're people.

At any rate, these idiots currently report and discuss—and pretend to care about—only one class of deaths. This is amazingly stupid work, and then too it's borderline evil.

People end up extremely scared when the events of the world are parceled out in such an astonishing way. Children become extremely scared. People end up grossly misled. People end up misinformed.

The Coopers, the Cuomos, the Burnetts and the Blitzers are all sunk in the sin of this game. We could barely believe the conduct we saw last night, over and over again.

We're not sure we've ever seen conduct to match last evening's. We expect to spend next week on various elements of this rapidly escalating insanity. For today, we'll offer you this:

The Washington Post has perhaps begun to slack off a bit with its Fatal Force site. But since it began in 2015, the site has recorded a total of 6,224 fatal shootings by police officers.

The site has been able to record the "race"/ethnicity of 5,677 of those decedents. The numbers break down like this:

Fatal shootings by police officers, 2015 to present:
White decedents: 2,883
Black decedents: 1,501
Hispanic decedents: 1,054
"Other" decedents: 239

The percentages look like this: 

Fatal shootings by police officers, 2015 to present:
White decedents: 50.1%
Black decedents: 26.4%
Hispanic decedents: 18.6%
"Other" decedents: 4.2%

Jiminez will sometimes correctly note that the number of black decedents is "disproportionate." In the most literal sense, that is perfectly accurate—but it's only the starting point of a larger, difficult analysis.

CNN is too lazy, and too howlingly incompetent, to even attempt to conduct that analysis. Put another way, CNN is an entertainment / propaganda / profit-seeking entity. It's barely a news org at all.

A classic horror film was played out on CNN last night. We refer to The Invasion of the Body Snatchers, in which the bodies of normal humans are taken over by entities which are grossly non-human.

That film betrays a secret fear that we may not be who and what we say we are. As the millionaires of CNN air their ridiculous "stories" each night, the good and decent and regular people become more and more misinformed.

Last night, we saw Benjamin Crump make one of his typical factual howlers as he was "interviewed" by Burnett. In her uniquely smart way, Burnett just sat there and took it. As the "interview" ended, she addressed her guest as "Ben."

We saw Cuomo say that he was going to ask Ma'khia Bryant's mother why her daughter had been in foster care. After a commercial break, the "interview" started. Cuomo turned tail and ran away from his daring pledge.

Concerning Cuomo, understand this:

He interviewed the mother of a teenage girl who was sot and killed by a police officer. He did so to let us know how much the family grieves.

He didn't interview the parents of Peyton Ham, a teenager who was shot and killed one week before. Those parents said they were "shattered" and "heartbroken," but under Cuomo's current arrangements, parents like them don't count.

Their son's name has never been mentioned on CNN. Astoundingly, this is the way the body-snatched currently choose to perform.

People are badly misled by this conduct. People become very scared.

That said, there are two others things which happen. We the people lose the chance to seek reform of our institutions "black and white together." Also this:

People who watch Fox News each night keep seeing videotape of the lunatic comments made by Our Town's cable stars. They see tape of those comments every night—and yes, the comments are crazy.

Our Town has been assailed by this sanity-snatching for the past ten years. Even after a decade of information-snatching, we were amazed by what we saw last night.

In the coming week, we'll discuss as much of this lunacy as we can. But we'd almost describe what we saw last night as something resembling a "press corps riot." One thinks of the summer of  '68, when Chicago's police did run wild.

Despite their unique smarts, these people should all be marched away. Truthfully, though, tell us the truth:

Truthfully, are they people? If so, on what meat do they feed?

"Segregation forever," professor says!

THURSDAY, APRIL 22, 2021

Lawrence obeys the code: Lawrence O'Donnell had just finished his opening lament.

Now that Chauvin was in the slammer, he was looking forward to future attempts to get the two rookie cops locked up. 

They were "bad cops," the cable star said. They hadn't stopped Officer Chauvin when he did what he did.

At 10:06, Lawrence threw to his first guest, Professor Glaude. The question he posed was this:

LAWRENCE (4/21/21): Professor Glaude, let me begin with you and your reactions to this day after, this night after the verdict.

What had the professor's reactions been? "Segregation forever," the Ivy Leaguer now said:

GLAUDE (continuing directly): Well, I'm still exhausted. There is a kind of general sense that the tight stomach I've lived with for the last few weeks isn't so tight. But then I'm still dealing with the images of Ma'Khia Bryant, in Columbus, Ohio, and her death. 

So, it feels as if, you know, Lawrence, there are these kind of waves, these tsunami waves that keep coming. So you know, we're still at it. There was a good verdict, but we're still dealing with the question, the central question at hand.

For the professor, the fatal shooting of Ma'Khia Bryant was one more tsunami wave. 

He didn't say what that "central question" was, nor did Lawrence ask. Instead, he asked his other guest to discuss the upcoming trial of the rookie cops.

What had Professor Glaude secretly said? In a major sense, he'd secretly said, "Segregation forever!" 

He was moving on to discussions of Ma'Khia Bryant's death. But how about Peyton Ham's death? 

For Glaude, that fatal shooting didn't compute. Lawrence just played right along.

Two points:

Professor Glaude was saying "Segregation forever," as Governor Wallace once did. One flavor of death will get his attention. Other flavors won't count.

(Also: This new death was presented as another tsunami, even if the fatal shooting may have saved someone's life.)

As for Lawrence, he had just finished licking his chops about the two first-week-on-the-job rookie cops. They hadn't stood up to Officer Chauvin, so they had to go to jail too. They had shown that they were "bad cops," Lawrence flatly said.

No sooner had Lawrence offered this thought than he played bad cop too. He didn't mention the fatal shooting of Peyton Ham either! "Segregation forever," Lawrence subtly said.

The rookie cops had literally been in their first week on the job. In various forms, Lawrence has been doing his job for roughly twenty years.

In all that time, have you ever seen Lawrence speak back to mainstream press corps messaging? Have you ever seen him contradict or challenge a "standard message" guest? 

Has he ever done that? Has he done it even once? In truth, it's never done in the upper-end press. This is known as a "code of silence," which is of course the sort of thing they say they just hate about cops.

On balance, we'll suggest that you focus on one key point. Try to get clear about this:

One flavor of death will be discussed. Other flavors will not. Those other flavors will be disappeared. Those other flavors don't count.

It was always this way in the past, especially in the professor's home state, whose governor was Governor Wallace. Now, the same rules of exclusion are embraced by Our Town's high-end press. 

Certain flavors won't even be mentioned! This is very bad journalistic practice. It produces vast misunderstandings concerning extremely basic sets of facts.

At any rate, just as it ever was! Our cable stars care about one (type of) kid. The other dead kids don't exist!

MOB AND TOWN: The wages of segregation is death!

THURSDAY, APRIL 22, 2021

The Post (and the Times) in Columbus: "The wages of sin is death," we've been reliably told.

So too with the wages of segregation.

Late yesterday afternoon, in an award-winning report,  we noted the way the New York Times has borrowed from Governor Wallace in the way it handles incidents in which people are shot and killed by police officers. 

To review that report, click here.

"Segregation, now, segregation tomorrow. Segregation forever!" That's what Governor Wallace once famously said. 

In its handling of fatal police shooting incidents, the Times has now made it plain that it follows that prescription. This morning, we learned that the Washington Post may perhaps seem to agree. 

Consider two recent fatal shooting incidents. Also, consider the "separate and highly unequal" way the Post has decided to handle these incidents.

We refer to two recent incidents in which teen-agers were shot and killed by police officers. Consider the way the Washington Post has reported these incidents:

The first such shooting death occurred on April 13 in Leonardtown, Maryland—a small community about 50 miles from D.C.

In that incident, Peyton Ham, age 18, was shot and killed while in possession of a toy rifle and (apparently) an actual knife. 

The Post reported the fatal shooting two days later. As we noted in this report, Karen Mettler's news report appeared on page B8—the back page of the newspaper's Metro section. 

Mettler's report appeared below the fold on that page. The top half of the page was devoted to weather forecasts. In the bottom half of the page, the news report of the fatal shooting shared space with a longer news report—a longer report about two tigers at the Norfolk, Va. zoo.

That's the way the Washington Post decided to handle that fatal shooting incident. Today, the Post reports on a second such incident in Columbus, Ohio.

This second incident occurred on Tuesday afternoon. In this second incident,  Ma’Khia Bryant,, age 16, was shot and killed, apparently while threatening a second teen-aged girl with a knife. 

Two teen-agers were shot and killed. It is at this point that differences start to appear in the two incidents, but also in the way the Post chose to handle these incidents.

As noted, the Post chose to report the first incident below the fold on the back page of the newspaper's Metro section. You'll never hear a word about it, we reliably predicted.

In the case of this second incident, it's reported today on page A1. It's reported above the fold on the Washington Post's front page.

One fatal incident rated the bottom half of page B8. The other incident appears above the fold on A1.

That doesn't necessarily reflect bad judgment on the part of the Post. But while we're at it, consider a major way in which these two fatal incidents seem to have differed.

We'll start with the incident in Columbus. By all accounts, and according to bodycam video, it seems that Stewart, age 16, was about to stab a second person when she was fatally shot. 

Compare that to the earlier incident. According to Mettler's report in the Post, Peyton Ham, age 18, was posing no direct threat to anyone at the time he was fatally shot:

METTLER (4/15/21): [S]tate police said that a trooper responded to Hollywood Road at about 1:30 p.m. after authorities received two 911 calls from a male caller who did not identify himself but said there was a “guy acting suspicious” who appeared to have a gun.

A trooper arrived in the area and confronted Ham in the driveway of a home in the 23000 block of Hollywood Road. Ham had what police said they later learned was “an airsoft gun that is a close representation of an actual handgun” and a knife. On Wednesday, state troopers released images of the airsoft gun and the knife.

A witness to the shooting told police that Ham was in a “shooting stance” in the driveway, according to authorities, and pointed the airsoft gun at the trooper, who fired at Ham and injured him.

A different witness told police that Ham then pulled out a knife and tried to get up, authorities said. Police said the trooper told Ham to drop his knife, then shot the teen again.

Paramedics were called to the scene and Ham was transported to MedStar St. Mary’s Hospital, where he died.

Based on that report, Ham had already been shot, and was apparently on the ground, when he was fatally shot. Based on that account, it seems that Ham was posing no immediate threat to anyone when he was fatally shot.

Let's compare and contrast! One of these teens was fatally shot when she was about to stab someone. The other teen was fatally shot while he (apparently) lay on the ground with no one nearby.

(In fairness, he still had the toy gun, which looked just like the real thing.)

On the surface, we note an obvious difference.  But the report from Columbus is on A1, and the report from Leonardtown was relegated to the back page of Metro--and, exactly as we predicted, you've heard nothing whatever about it.

Rachel hasn't talked about it. Neither have Lawrence or Brian. Chris and Anderson and Don haven't mentioned it, and they never will.

The handling of these incidents recalls an especially egregious part of our American history. Two teenagers were shot and killed—but the reporting of these incidents has been "separate and highly unequal."

We're not even saying the Post was wrong to put Columbus on its front page. But the wages of segregation is death, and Our Town's upper-end cultural groups are all committed to that form of death at this particular time.

(Over on Fox, they aren't.)

Why did Stewart go to A1, while Ham was left to die on B8? The disparate placement reflects a major part of Our Town's remarkably stupid culture. Our Town is getting dumber and dumber, although we've never told this.

Once again, we're not even saying that the Post's news judgment today was wrong. But the wages of segregation is death, and this notable bit of disparate placement was accompanied, in the Post and the New York Times, by some remarkably stupid "reporting."

The wages of Stupid has always been death. Anthropologists say that we've wired this way. As we noted yesterday, Kevin Drum has also chipped in with thoughts about lost IQ points.

We'll hear about Columbus forever. Leonardtown? Never again!

Tomorrow: Amazingly stupid reporting

This afternoon: Princeton professor strikes a  pose; Lawrence obeys the code

Segregation now, segregation tomorrow...

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 21, 2021

At the Times, segregation forever! Kevin Drum may have solved the riddle of the Sphinx.

We refer to his work on blood lead levels which, he reported for Mother Jones, were massively higher in past decades than they ever were for the children of Flint.

He reported that the children of Flint may have lost an IQ point or two due to their city's water crisis. (No, that isn't desirable.) But he further reported that most Americans growing up a few decades earlier had much higher levels of lead exposure.

This seems to suggest that all us unlucky duckies may have lost quite a few IQ points. We think about this more and more when we read the work of our nation's upper-end press corps.

Consider the latest addled report from the New York Times. It leads this morning's National section, eating all of page A14. In print editions, the headline reads like this:

Few Charges, Fewer Convictions: A Grim History of Police Violence

"Police violence" is a slightly loaded term, but it's also an important topic. But when the actual report begins, that actually isn't what the report is actually about:

GARDINER AND HALLECK (4/21/21): For many observers, the trial of Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer charged in George Floyd’s death, has felt like the culmination of years of outrage and grief over police killings of Black people in America. Video of the arrest that led to Mr. Floyd’s death inspired demonstrations that touched every corner of the country last summer, with protesters demanding justice for Mr. Floyd.

The Times reviewed dozens of similar cases in which encounters between Black people and police ended fatally. Though many cases prompted public outrage, that did not always translate to criminal indictments. In some cases, police officers were shown to have responded lawfully. In others, charges were dropped or plea agreements were reached. Some have resulted in civil settlements. But very few have resulted in convictions at trial.

These cases offer valuable points of comparison about what issues—video evidence, drug use, whether the person who died was armed—proved decisive in each outcome and what consequences, if any, officers faced. Even as the trial has unfolded, several events, including the killing of Daunte Wright just a few miles from Minneapolis, have provided a grim reminder that Mr. Floyd’s death is one in a decades-long history of fatal encounters.

As it turns out, the report is about "police violence"—but only if the police violence has been directed at people the Times scores as "black." No "whites," Hispanics, Asian-Americans, Native Americans or others need apply!

This has become an amazingly standard way of approaching such topics. It disappears the large volumes of "police violence" which are directed, on an annual basis, at people the Times doesn't score as "black." 

This now familiar journalistic practice is deeply misleading. It's misleading in ginormous ways. 

It's also deeply divisive. How many IQ points did you have to lose to make this your standard approach?

Governor Wallace said it first and best: "Segregation forever!"

This turns out to be the motto the modern New York Times runs by! Are there three IQ points to bang together in the the whole of this dimwitted rag?

This is the way this dimwitted paper seeks to display its vast moral concern. Borrowing from Governor Wallace, we'll offer this motto to the modern-day Times:

Performative now, performative tomorrow. Performative forever!

Is Merrick Garland allowed to do that?

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 21, 2021

Lessons in novelization: Merrick Garland seems to be getting way out over his skis.

He seems to be doing what mustn't be done! According to the New York Times (headline included), he's messing with novelization:

BENNER (4/21/21): Attorney General Merrick Garland announces an investigation into the Minneapolis Police Department

The Justice Department will investigate the policies and operations of the Minneapolis Police Department, Attorney General Merrick B. Garland announced on Wednesday, a day after the former officer Derek Chauvin was convicted of murder in the death of George Floyd in a rare rebuke of police violence.

“The Justice Department has opened a civil investigation to determine whether the Minneapolis Police Department engages in a pattern or practice of unconstitutional or unlawful policing,” Mr. Garland said in brief remarks at the Justice Department.

Such investigations are often the precursors to court-approved deals between the Justice Department and local governments that create and enforce a road map for training and operational changes.

Mr. Garland’s announcement came a day after the conviction of Mr. Chauvin, who was fired by the Minneapolis Police Department last year after gruesome video of him kneeling on Mr. Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes sparked protests across the nation.

[...]

Investigators will seek to determine whether the Minneapolis Police Department engages in a pattern or practice of using excessive force, including during protests; whether it engages in discriminatory conduct; and whether its treatment of those with behavioral health disabilities is unlawful. They will also review the department's policies, training, supervision and use-of-force investigations, and whether its current systems of accountability are effective at ensuring that police officers act lawfully.

Garland is messing with novelization! Here's what we mean by that:

Derek Chauvin's behavior last May did indeed result in some "gruesome video." When it did, the press corps quickly scripted a novel about the event—and Chief Medaria Arradondo was cast as one of the good guys.

For all we know, Chief Arradondo really is one the good guys! That said, we thought he moved very quickly last May to throw two rookie cops under the bus, while painting himself as the sensitive hero of this gruesome event.

Needless to say, our upper-end press corps bought it. Very few questions were ever asked about the overall conduct of the MPD. Right up through the Chauvin trial, every flattering representation of Arradondo's policies and operations was swallowed whole by Our Town's news orgs, absolutely no questions asked.

During the actual trial, the chief sat through several hours of pointless non-questioning from the prosecutors. Arradondo is very personable; he supplied several hours of soft-soap answers to several hours of soft-soap questions.

Very few questions were asked by the press. Now, someone else is going to ask.

We don't have the slightest idea what this probe will (or won't) reveal. Concerning the practice of novelization, we can tell you this:

On cable TV, our childish stars couldn't stop repeating the pleasing claims which came from an array of MPD officials. This established the basic storyline, in which Chauvin was the puzzling renegade who betrayed the good works and the good intentions of all those other people.

It may turn out that that's the true story concerning the MPD and this horrible incident. But here in Our Town, we liked that story. The lack of curiosity was general. Now, Garland has apparently decided to take a look for himself.

By coincidence, we read through Arradondo's testimony earlier this morning. There was very little to it.

Concerning those (first-week) rookie cops, we'd ask Garland to investigate this:

What kind of training did those rookie cops receive before they went out on the job? More specifically, what were they instructed to do if, during their first week on the street, the veteran cop who was supervising them suddenly engaged in the craziest conduct ever seen on the planet?

What was their specific training for that? What were they told they should do?

Back in May, we thought Arradondo throw those rookies under the bus very quickly. We thought he quickly kissed up to the press. Needless to say, the press bought it.

We thought those rookies got thrown away fast. So what was their actual training like? One inquiring mind wants to ask!

At present, Gene Robinson is trying to get those (first-week) rookie cops thrown into prison. He's doing so through such squalid misconduct as this:

ROBINSON (4/20/21): [Schleicher] reminded jurors that the encounter began when a different officer—who also faces criminal charges—approached Floyd’s car with his gun aimed at Floyd’s face, which was obviously terrifying. Schleicher explained that Floyd was not resisting arrest but experiencing claustrophobic anxiety about being shoved into the patrol car. And he pointed out that when Chauvin and the other officers brought Floyd back out of the car, Floyd politely told them “thank you.”

Thomas Lane didn't approach Floyd's car in the manner described, and Schleicher didn't say he did. Robinson's statement is baldly inaccurate. He and his equally squalid editors pretty much don't seem to care.

(For details, see yesterday's report.)

We're going to offer more examples from Robinson's recent columns in the days ahead. His conduct shouldn't be tolerated.

That said, no one within the guild is going to challenge Robinson for his ongoing misconduct. Our journalists posture about codes of silence within the police while maintaining their own sacred code.

Garland is going to conduct a review of the MPD. It's an unvarnished attack on the novel.

No one will challenge Gene Robinson's work. Dearest darlings! It just isn't done!

MOB AND TOWN: We don't believe the poses they strike!

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 21, 2021

That doesn't make them bad people: Mary McCarthy may have been Lawrence's inspiration.

McCarthy once made a colorful comment concerning Lillian Hellman. We thought of McCarthy's famous remark as we briefly tried to watched our pundits perform last night.

McCarthy's comment is often cited. The leading authority on her remark describes it as shown:

Beginning in the late 1960s, and continuing through to her death, Hellman turned to writing a series of popular memoirs of her colorful life and acquaintances. Hellman's accuracy was challenged in 1979 on The Dick Cavett Show, when Mary McCarthy said of her memoirs that "every word she writes is a lie, including 'and' and 'the'." Hellman brought a defamation suit against McCarthy and Cavett...

The defamation suit was unresolved at the time of Hellman's death in 1984; her executors eventually withdrew the complaint.

What the heck did Cavett do wrong? We have no idea! 

For the record, we're going to guess that "every word" actually wasn't a lie. But we thought of that famous acerbic remark as we briefly tried to watch our upper-end pundits last night.

In recent years, our pundits have been staging one of their stampedes. They've been pretending to care about matters involving the mistreatment of people on the basis of perceived race.

For traditional, extremely well-founded reasons, we rarely use the word "lie." Still, we often think of McCarthy's remark when we watch these humans perform:

We don't believe the poses they strike. We don't believe the pious tone within which they encase their comments.

We're disinclined to believe the things they say. We've been watching them far too long.

We've been describing the work of these journalists for a very long time now. When they stage one of their famous stampedes, a process of novelization occurs. That process goes like this:

The pundits create a set of claims in support of the viewpoint they've chosen. In support of this enterprise, they'll disappear inconvenient facts. They'll embellish others.

They'll emphasize wholly irrelevant facts. They'll even invent false facts, which they recite as a group.

They'll write columns in the Washington Post in which they make baldly inaccurate claims. They'll do this to try to get young people marched away to jail.

In all honesty, this is ugly behavior. They engage in it all the way down.

(They hail the end of one "code of silence" even as they religiously maintain another. They do not report or challenge their colleagues' misstatements. It simply isn't done.)

These may be well-intentioned people—but they're people, all the way down. According to disconsolate experts, our human brains are wired to produce these types of group behavior. 

Our brains are wired, these experts insist, to lead us to posture and pose on behalf of tribal dogma. We repeat the Storylines of the tribe and we come to loathe The Others. It has always been like this, we're told

We could barely stand to look at their faces last night. Their conduct strikes us as remarkably bad, but so it will remain.

With that in mind, do these pious figures actually care about matters of race? We see no particular sign that they do. To us, it simply looks like the latest stampede, with all the attendant behaviors.

In the next two days, we'll offer recent examples to explain why we say that. But of these reporters, pundits and cable news hosts, we do offer this:

Bless their hearts, as they say in the South. This ugly, insincere group behavior is simply the best they can do!

Tomorrow: A portrait of massive disinterest

Brian Williams asks a "question!"

TUESDAY, APRIL 20, 2021

Above all, never explain: There was quite a bit of complexity to the Chauvin trial.

The medical testimony was complex, principally concerning the cause of death. Beyond that, there's a complex bit of legal logic draped around this trial.

Where does legal complexity enter the scrum? To illustrate a basic point, consider a hypothetical:

Suppose a police officer arrests someone  on a perfectly valid basis. As an act of mercy, he gives the person he has detained a peanut butter sandwich.

The detainee eats the sandwich. It turns out he's severely allergic to peanuts, and he dies as a result.

Is this officer guilty of a crime? Plainly, his behavior was one of the principal causes of the detainee's death. 

No, it wasn't the only cause—but it was one of the causes! The detainee wouldn't have died that day except for the officer's sandwich.

Presumably, no one would think the police officer should be charged with a crime. But given the way Minnesota state law has been explained on CNN, it seems to us that the officer would have committed a crime!

What's the law in Minnesota according to which Chauvin has been charged with murder? On CNN, "hangin' pundit" Laura Coates kept insisting that Chauvin would be guilty of murder and/or manslaughter just so long as his conduct was one of the causes of the late George Floyd's death. 

Chauvin's conduct didn't have to be the only cause. It didn't even have to the principal cause. Just so long as it was one of the causes, that meant Chauvin was guilty, Coates said and said, then said and said, then said a hundred times more.

Coates said it again and again and again. But that would mean that the cop with the peanut butter sandwich had committed a "homicide" too.

What does Minnesota law actually say? Yesterday, the prosecution offered its account of the relevant laws involved in the charges facing Chauvin. After that, defense attorney Eric Nelson seemed to be sketching out a quite different view of the matter. 

Beyond that, Nelson seemed to be arguing that Derek Chauvin's actions that day were, in fact, consistent with department policies of the Minneapolis PD. Putting it another way, a great deal of material needed explaining when yesterday's presentations were done.

Instead, Our Town's pundits and analysts entered the scene. And they entered the scene, as they typically do, all spilling from inside one big giant clown car.

On CNN and MSNBC, these analysts exist for one reason only—to guarantee that we never hear anything but tribal dogma. This brings us to the stylish car from which Brian Williams emerged.

In last evening's opening segment, Williams featured three reliable pundits, the kind who are guaranteed To Say The Exact Same Things. 

His first, completely respectful question went to Marilyn Mosby (!). At some length, she praised the utter brilliance of the prosecution's closing argument.

Then, Williams turned to Cynthia Alksne. When he did, our biggest and most sardonic clown sardonically "asked" her this:

WILLIAMS (4/19/21): Cynthia, it's never good when your closing argument—I'm talking about the defense here—goes on for so long that the judge has to interrupt you because, in effect, you're lost the jury, and he calls a 30-minute lunch break only to let you continue after the break.

That being established as a predicate, what did you make of the defense argument?

That being established as a predicate! According to experts in rhetoric, it was right up there with the famous, "Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?"

That was Brian's "question." And of course, having heard her host establish the predicate, Alksne knew where to go next:

ALKSNE (continuing directly): Oh my God! I thought I was listening to the Lincoln-Douglas debates, they were so long...

Alksne sputtered forward from there, trashing the horror of Nelson' blather. That's how it works in Our Town.

For the record, this particular talking point was cherished all over our "cable news" channels. There were very few attempts to explain any possible points of medical or legal dispute.

The defense attorney spoke too long! This talking point was general. It stems from what seemed like a strange decision by Judge Peter Cahill.

Cahill has seemed perfectly sensible all through the course of the trial. Yesterday, though, he did a slightly strange thing. He let Eric Nelson start his closing argument for the defense at 11:40 A.M. Minneapolis time—just twenty minutes short of noon.

The decision struck us as odd. There was no time limit on the closing argument, and a defendant's rights were at stake. Needless to say, we all cherish our American legal system, which seeks to protect such rights.

Wouldn't it have made better sense to start lunch a little bit early, then let Nelson offer his closing argument without fear of interruption, and without jurors growing hungry?

In our view, that would have made better sense. At any rate, Cahill interrupted Nelson for lunch shortly after 2 P.M. Minneapolis time. This meant that Nelson's argument was delivered in two chunks—and this launched a thousand quips from our pundit flotilla.

Did Nelson talk too long? Everything is possible! That said, we've ciphered the total amounts of time used by the prosecution and by the defense. The numbers look like this:

Total length of closing arguments:
Prosecution: Two hours, 25 minutes
Defense: Two hours, 48 minutes

How dare a mere defense attorney dare to go on so long?

For what it's worth, Our Town's pundits have often complained, down through the years, when targeted parties have gone on too long. They hate to listen to speeches or arguments. They bore extremely quickly.

There's one  other thing they will not do—they will not try to explain things! They exist to recite bits of script. Nelson went on too long!

This morning, we actually saw defense attorney Danny Cevallos make a scary suggestion. We saw this happen on Morning Joe, where Cevallos was allowed to speak for maybe eleven seconds. 

Uh-oh! Cevallos actually tried to explain his view of relevant state law. "If the knee is legal, that is a defense against all charges," he inappropriately said.

Cevallos was silenced after that. He's the one "legal analyst" on MSNBC who doesn't automatically say What Everyone Else Just Said.

We have no idea how the relevant laws work. That's because we watch the channels which prevail in Our Town.

We did see Brian ask his "question." He may be our best-dressed clown.

The other memorized point: Is it possible that Chauvin's conduct that day actually was consistent with department training and policy? We have no idea, for reasons explained above.

That said, every pundit in Our Town knows how to dismiss such thoughts. Chief Arradondo testified that the conduct was wrong!

Of course, this killing happened on Chief Arradondo's watch. Whatever the truth of these matters might be, the chief is an interested party in this matter, though no such thought will ever darken the spotless minds catered to in Our Town.

Our general view? A lot remains to be explained, but we don't do that here. This is the way our brains are wired, major top experts all say.

MOB AND TOWN: Our press corps pretends to discuss a trial!

TUESDAY, APRIL 20, 2021

Gene can't seem to stop: Simply put, he can't stop.

The "he" in this case is the Washington Post's Gene Robinson. In recent weeks, he hasn't been able to stop writing a certain type of column about the ongoing Chauvin trial.

We refer to columns including factual claims like the one we highlight below. In this passage from his new column, Robinson is referring to yesterday's closing argument by prosecutor Steve Schleicher: 

ROBINSON (4/20/21): [Schleicher] reminded jurors that the encounter began when a different officer—who also faces criminal charges—approached Floyd’s car with his gun aimed at Floyd’s face, which was obviously terrifying. Schleicher explained that Floyd was not resisting arrest but experiencing claustrophobic anxiety about being shoved into the patrol car. And he pointed out that when Chauvin and the other officers brought Floyd back out of the car, Floyd politely told them “thank you.”

The highlighted passage is a misstatement of what Schleicher actually said.  It's also a misstatement of what that "different officer" actually did.

The "different officer who also faces criminal charges" is Thomas Lane, who was literally in his first week on the job on the fateful day in question.

Lane, a rookie officer, was in his first week on the job! He'd responded to a call from Cup Foods about a counterfeit $20 bill. Later, things went badly downhill after Officer Chauvin arrived.

That said, Lane and his partner, J. Alexander Keung, were the first officers on the scene. Keung was also in his first week on the job. 

(We have no idea why the MPD would assign two first-week rookies to patrol together. As far as we know, no one in the upper-end press corps has ever discussed this point.)

Lane was directed to the car where the late George Floyd had apparently fallen asleep. One of Floyd's two companions that day (Shawanda Hill) testified that they'd been unable to awaken Floyd so he could drive away before police arrived.

Now, Lane was approaching the car. But he didn't "approach Floyd’s car with his gun aimed at Floyd’s face," the exciting claim Robinson has falsely placed in Schleicher's mouth.

In fact, Lane didn't approach the car with his gun drawn at all! We find it hard to believe that Robinson, a celebrated Pulitzer winner, is unaware of that basic fact. We assume he simply preferred his exciting, prejudicial claim to an accurate statement of fact.

(The Pulitzers are a set of prestigious awards our "journalists" bestow on each other on an annual basis. Sometimes, they're richly deserved. Other times, not so much.)

In fact, Lane knocked on the window of Floyd's car with his flashlight. The sequence was first described by the Washington Post's Holly Bailer all the way back in July 2020, when bodycam footage of these events was first released to the press by Judge Cahill.

We read the report on the day it appeared on the Post's front page. Stating the obvious, Robinson read it too:

BAILEY (7/16/20): [Lane's] body camera shows he twice tapped on the vehicle’s window with a flashlight. Floyd initially didn’t respond, but the second time, he looked over his shoulder and seemed startled to see Lane.

As Floyd started to open his door, Lane ordered him to stay in the car and drew his weapon. “Put your f---ing hands up right now!” he ordered, while aiming at him.

Floyd raised his hands and started to cry. He told Lane he had been shot by police before. Floyd then followed Lane’s order to place his hands on the wheel and leaned his forehead there, too, as he sobbed. Lane placed his gun back in the holster seconds later...

Why did Lane draw his weapon at all? If memory serves, Floyd—who seemed somewhat disoriented after being startled awake—may already have been failing to obey the command to let Lane see his hands.

(You can go back and check that one out. We aren't going to bother.)

At any rate, once Floyd placed his hands on the steering wheel, Lane put his gun back in its holster Unless you read Robinson's inexcusable column, in which case you've been told that he "approached Floyd’s car with his gun aimed at Floyd’s face, which was obviously terrifying."

We're sorry, but no—that isn't what happened. On the brighter side, Robinson has treated Our Town to a  much more pleasing, though blatantly false, version of those events.

Why would someone like Robinson present a claim of that type? Also, why would Robinson's unnamed editor allow the widely ballyhooed prize-winner to do that?

As Michael Corleone once asked, "Who's being naive now, Kay?" By now, aren't the answers to these questions fairly obvious?

At this site, we've been writing about this type of behavior for roughly twenty-three years. In this case, we'll speak frankly about what Robinson is doing in that inexcusable passage:

He's trying to get a first-week cop locked up—thrown in jail. Chauvin's head won't be enough, given the fury of the stampede our upper-end "press corps" is on.

Robinson's columns on the trial have been replete with conduct of this type. We plan to review at least one earlier column before this week is done.

That said, let's go ahead and be perfectly clear about what Robinson was doing when he composed that phony account. He was running with a mob in the streets—the same kind of mob which used to run in the streets, but also in the backwoods, of his native South Carolina.

Make no mistake! Here in Our Town, we want to get Chauvin locked up, but we want those rookie cops too. Please don't say this assessment is wrong. This is exactly what our "journalists" have been doing, nor is this anything new.

It's what they did when they formed a mob to go after Candidate Gore, thus sending us into Iraq. It's what they did when they couldn't stop talking about the deeply troubling emails of Donald J. Trump's opponent, Candidate Hillary Clinton.

Today's misstatement is ugly stuff, a throwback to deep prehistory. But when will Robinson stop doing such things? When will his newspaper make him?

Yesterday, we watched the closing arguments in the Chauvin trial. Then we watched the punditry.

The punditry was the standard clownish disgrace. It would be comical if life and death weren't involved, along with the nation's future.

Woody Guthrie said it long ago in his ballad, Pretty Boy Floyd. His song was about upper-class conduct  in Dust Bowl days, but it describes Robinson's conduct as well:

As through this world I've wandered
I've seen lots of funny men.
Some rob you with a six-gun,
Some with a fountain pen.

In Guthrie's vision, it was Dust Bowl bankers who were willing to "rob you with a fountain pen." They'd seize the farms of the little people, who were sent on the road to Hell.

We've often thought of that formulation as we've watched Our Town's upper-end press corps pretend to discuss this trial and the events which caused it.

In the past, mobs in Robinson's South Carolina took a type of hands-on approach to the delivery of justice.

Today, it's done with a computer terminal, with Our Town's greatest people in charge.

This afternoon: Brian's comical question

What did Schleicher actually say: No, that isn't what Schleicher said. We'd say he had his thumbs on the scales a tad, but not to that extent.

What did Schleicher actually say? For the full transcript of his remarks, you can just click here.

When you get there, search on "Lane." You'll find it 24 minutes down.

Robinson misreported what Schleicher said. He just can't seem to stop.

Starting tomorrow: BREAKDOWNS AND TOWN!

MONDAY, APRIL 19, 2021

Snapshots of cascading failures: The headline on a front page in today's New York Times says this:

Minneapolis Braces for Verdict in Floyd’s Death

Minneapolis is bracing for that verdict, the front-page headline says.  On the front page of today's Washington Post, the headline in question says this:

Minneapolis braces for unrest

We've already seen several pundits say it this morning. Our nation is bracing for the verdict in this high-profile trial!

Here at this site, we're so in love with our (professed) American values that we're doing something different this morning. We're so in love with our American and Enlightenment values that we're actually waiting to hear the closing arguments in this high-profile trial.

We're waiting to hear the closing arguments! Can you imagine that?

In fairness, we're fairly sure that defense attorney Eric Nelson won't be saying several things in his closing argument. For one thing, we're fairly sure he won't say that the late George Floyd died of a dug overdose.

In yesterday's New York Times, Will Wright devoted a lot of time to that alleged argument. In part, Wright's report said this:

WRIGHT (4/18/21): Arguably the most important question in this case is what caused Mr. Floyd’s death. The prosecution has maintained that Mr. Floyd died from asphyxia, or the deprivation of oxygen, and has called several expert witnesses to support that notion. Dr. Martin J. Tobin, a pulmonologist and a world-renowned expert on breathing, agreed, saying that Mr. Floyd died from a lack of oxygen imposed by the restraint.

[...]

Dr. Tobin said he saw no evidence of an overdose, striking a blow to the defense’s contention that drugs played a primary role in Mr. Floyd’s death. In nuanced testimony, Dr. Tobin counted Mr. Floyd’s breaths and said that he was breathing at a regular rate in the minutes before he died. Had he been suffering an overdose, Dr. Tobin said, the rate of breath should have slowed.

Though regular in interval, the breaths were not deep enough to sustain life, Dr. Tobin said. He was one of several expert witnesses who testified they saw no evidence of an overdose.

Wright is at the Times for one year as a "national reporting fellow." That program recently replaced the paper's summer internship program.

Presumably under the guidance of an older editor, Wright went on, at some length, about the flaws in that alleged argument. According to Wright's report, "witness after witness called by the prosecution...sa[id] they saw no evidence of a drug overdose." 

In fairness, Wright's statement was perfectly accurate. Various prosecution witnesses actually did say such things. 

That said, we're fairly sure that Nelson isn't going to claim that Floyd died of a drug or fentanyl overdose. That seems to be a bit of a straw man—a straw man quite a few major pundits have also enjoyed shooting down.

As best we can tell, there's something else Nelson won't be claiming in his closing argument. He won't be claiming that the late George Floyd died of carbon monoxide poisoning. 

We're assuming he won't make that claim. We mention this because of something we read in Friday morning's Washington Post:

BAILEY (4/16/21): Chauvin’s decision [not to testify in his own defense] effectively ended the defense case, which called just seven witnesses over two days—far less than the three dozen prosecution witnesses who appeared over a span of two weeks.

On Thursday, prosecutors recalled Martin Tobin, the Chicago-area pulmonologist who testified last week in excruciating detail about Floyd’s fight for breath. He appeared as a rebuttal witness to challenge testimony from David Fowler, the former Maryland state medical examiner and chief forensic witness for the defense, who floated a theory Wednesday that Floyd may have died of carbon monoxide poisoning.

Holly Bailey went on at some length about this alleged theory.  But did David Fowler really "float a theory that Floyd may have died of carbon monoxide poisoning?" 

Is that what Fowler actually said? Is Nelson going to make that claim in his closing argument?

We're going to guess that he won't. We were surprised by what Bailey wrote, in part because, during Wednesday's testimony, we saw and heard such exchanges as these:

NELSON (4/14/21): And let me just ask you, are you suggesting that Mr. Floyd died from carbon monoxide poisoning?

FOWLER: Absolutely not, no.

[...]

NELSON: So again, you're not suggesting to the jury that Mr. Floyd died of carbon monoxide poisoning.

FOWLER: Not exclusively, no.

[...]

NELSON: So if you're not saying that carbon monoxide caused Mr. Floyd's death, can you likewise eliminate it as a contributing factor?

FOWLER: The only way to eliminate carbon monoxide as a contributing factor would be to ensure that there was none in his blood or a very, very low level in his blood...

Which part of "you're not saying that carbon monoxide caused Mr. Floyd's death" didn't the Post understand? Fellow citizens, we're just asking!

Also, is it really that hard to handle the logic involved in a claim about (possible) "contributing factors?"

Is the logic of that presentation really that hard to handle? Here in Our Town, and at times like these, yes, it actually is! And so we reach the terrible state we find ourselves at this point.

Here at this site, we're running out of ways to describe the cascading breakdowns on display here in the streets of Our Town. 

You can see these cascading breakdowns as an intellectual failure. You can also see them as a moral failure, but because we believe in the "love ethic" Dr. King described and endorsed, we'd suggest being careful with that, lest you start conjuring Others.

Experts offer a third perspective on our cascading meltdown. They tell us the breakdowns to which we refer represent an anthropological failure. They say we're looking at the way our human brains are wired, and have always been wired.

They say that explains the remarkable columns Gene Robinson won't stop writing. They say that explains how someone as unreliable as Rachel Maddow could be sold to us, and accepted by us,  as the brightest person in town.

They say that explains the remarkably strange news report which topped the front page of the Metro section of yesterday's Washington Post. They say that explains the way our news orgs are describing, but are also refusing to describe, the circumstances surrounding Daunte Wright's shooting death.

"This is the way the world ends," the poet once wrote. "Not with a bang but a whimper." Like Luther laboring in his garden, we're still willing to wonder what Nelson is going to say. 

(He faces a challenging task.)

According to our American values, no one will be required to agree with whatever it is he says. But according to our American values, we should probably wait to hear what he says—and we shouldn't misdescribe it.

Due to our cascading failures, we're on the road to perdition here in Our Town, or so major experts keep saying. That doesn't make us bad people, they say. It simply means that we're people.

This morning, we're going to watch the closing arguments. Concerning the forthcoming end of the world, we'll be offering snapshots of our cascading failures all week.

Full disclosure: This report was posted before the start of closing arguments.

Tomorrow: A portrait of widespread indifference

The things we can't be told in Our Town!

SATURDAY, APRIL 17, 2021

Today, it's the Washington Post: Why was Daunte Wright being arrested last Sunday?

The answer to that is one of the things we can't be told in Our Town.. On Thursday night, this is what we marks were told as The NewsHour's Yamiche Alcindor spoke with Brian Williams:

ALCINDOR (4/15/21): So the mother and family of Daunte Wright today said, Can you imagine what Dante was probably feeling as he had three officers surrounding him for what seemed like a minor infraction having to do with a warrant for marijuana, a business that people make money with all over the country? So I think there really needs to be a big conversation about that.

WILLIAMS: Yeah, a 20-year-old in a Buick that was a gift to him. Yamiche, you're so right.

Earth to the PBS NewsHour and to Brian Williams: 

Daunte Wright wasn't being arrested on the basis of "a minor infraction having to do with a warrant for marijuana." For background on this point, see yesterday's report.

It's amazing to think that this howling misstatement was made on Thursday evening's show. As we predicted yesterday, no correction was offered last night as Williams novelized his way through yet another program. 

Here in Our Town, we aren't allowed to know the facts about that attempted arrest. Our minders are committed to misinforming us the rubes about this point of Sacred Narrative.

Thursday night, things got so bad that we were told that the attempted arrest concerned marijuana! Last night, Brian let this ridiculous howler stand—and this morning, in the Washington Post, Our Town was treated to this:

EMBA (4/17/21): This Sunday, as the trial paused, police in Brooklyn Center, Minn., (less than 10 miles from where Chauvin is on trial for the death of George Floyd) pulled over Daunte Wright while he was driving, citing a traffic violation. Air freshener hanging from his rearview mirror, Wright told his mother. An expired tag, the police department said. Either way, not capital offenses. Wright attempted to get back into his car, and a police officer shot him to death. Allegedly, she mistook her gun for her Taser. She has, at least, resigned and been charged with manslaughter.

Werewolves of London again!

That was Christine Emba, in the Washington Post, advancing the scripted misimpression that the attempted arrest was about those demon air fresheners. Or an expired tag!

On what basis was that arrest attempted? Here in Our Town, an agreement exists among our elites—we rubes aren't allowed to know.

While we're at it, also take note of this:

Wright broke away from the police officer who was trying to handcuff him. He then attempted to evade arrest (again). How does Emba describe that action?

Simple! According to Emba, the young man "attempted to get back into his car." It's the most innocent thing in the world!

Young people do many foolish things. Wright had done several foolish things in the past several years, at least two of which apparently involved the use of a gun. Also, the failure to show up for his court date concerning his use of a gun.

We aren't inclined to blame young people for doing foolish thigs. On the other hand, it's hard to be sufficiently amazed by the kinds of people who go on MSNBC, or who write in the Washington Post, and refuse to tell us rubes the truth about this important event.

We aren't inclined to blame young people for the unwise things they do. Having said that, let us also say this:

Alcindor, Williams and Emba (and Emba's editors) are no longer young. We'll further explore this remarkable journalistic group conduct at the start of the week.

Teen with toy gun shot and killed by police!

SATURDAY, APRIL 17, 2021

It's time for (Chris) Cuomo to go: As we noted yesterday, Dr. King believed in what he called "the love ethic of Jesus."

He discussed that "love ethic" in his first book, Stride Toward Freedom, his memoir of the Montgomery bus boycott. The book was published when Dr. King was 27 years old.

For ourselves, we don't hold any any religious or cosmological beliefs. In that way, we differ from Dr. King. That said, we'll sign on to the "love ethic" he described in that early, astonishing book.

We mention Dr. King's love ethic because we were so appalled by Chris Cuomo's opening monologue last night. In our view, it's long past time for (Chris) Cuomo to go, but that doesn't mean that he isn't part of the beloved community.

As we watched his monologue in real time, we could hardly believe what Cuomo seemed to be saying. In fairness, his delivery has become so mannered, so heavily dramatized, that it's sometimes extremely hard to feel sure about what's being said.

After rewatching the tape, we think we were right about what he seemed to be saying. It doesn't seem to make much sense, but we think we know what it was.

What was Cuomo saying last night? He seemed to be saying that "white" people will only care about (fatal) police shootings when it's white kids who are getting fatally shot. 

Is that really what he was saying? We'll report and let you decide! After correcting some errors in the transcript, the passage in question starts like this:

CUOMO (4/16/21): George Floyd, Daunte Wright? I wonder if you'll remember their names, six months from today, because there'll be replaced by so many others.

You're here, people. What are you going to do when you see these shootings? You know what you're going to do:

[Leaning in, speaking suggestively]

"That George Floyd, did you hear about him? That Daunte Wright, did you hear about him? That 13-year-old Adam, you know he was a gangbanger?"

Why do that? Because you want to make the problem "Them." It takes the onus off the idea that you're wrong about policing not needing to change. 

Forget that police are trained to deal with non-compliance, with force that is not lethal. 

[Leaning in, speaking suggestively]

"Hey, comply or die, you know what I mean?"

Cuomo's dramatic skills are much less advanced that he seems to think. At any rate, he seemed to be saying that his "white" viewers don't care about fatal incidents involving police if the people who end up dead are "black."

He seemed to be saying that white viewers will "criminalize" those decedents as a way of explaining the problem away—will thereby dismiss this state of affairs as something which happens to "Them."  

As Cuomo continued, so did the lack of clarity inherent to his dramatized style. But despite the muddle, it seems to us that his point became more clear.

Displaying impressive clairvoyance, Cuomo proceeded to explain what his white viewers "know." He also explained what such people feel. 

He seemed to say that "white" people will only care about this state of affairs when it's white kids who are getting shot and killed. It seems to us that this claim emerges from this muddle:

CUOMO (continuing directly): And you know what the answer is. You really do. You don't like it. I don't like. It scares me. 

Shootings? Gun laws, access to weapons? Oh, I know when they'll change:

Your kids start getting killed. White people's kids start getting killed. Smoking that doobie that's actually legal, probably in your state now, but they don't know what it was, and then the kid runs, and then "Pow! Pow! Pow! Pow!" 

Cop was justified. "Why'd you run?" "Oh, he had a baseball game tonight." Oh? 

White kid? Big family, that house over there? Those start piling up?

"What is going on with these police? Oh, what? Maybe we shouldn't even have police!" 

That kind of mania, that kind of madness? That'll be you! That'll be the majority, because it's your people.

At any given moment, it was hard to tell what this big sack of air was actually trying to say. 

If CNN was a real news org—rather plainly, it isn't—someone would insist that Cuomo express himself with less drama and with a lot more clarity. On balance, though, it seems fairly clear that he was saying this:

White people will only care about fatal police shootings when it's white kids who are getting shot and killed. 

That seems to be what this big bag of wind was saying.  This made us think about one of the most recent fatal shootings.

One of the most recent fatal shootings:

The report appeared in Thursday's Washington Post. That's Thursday, April 15—Thursday of this week.

The report appeared on page B8—the back page of the Metro section. In print editions, the headline said this:

Family 'shattered' after police shooting of teen

The teen in question was 16 years old. You haven't heard a word about this fatal shooting, and you never will. 

The report appeared below the fold on page B8, beneath the day's voluminous weather reports. It shared the bottom half of the page with a longer news report about two tigers at the Norfolk, Va. zoo who have tested positive for the coronavirus.

(The dead teen got two columns, the infected tigers got four.)

You haven't heard about this fatal shooting, nor are we even saying that you should. That said, the teen in question had been wielding a toy gun, and his family says they're shattered. 

Katie Mettler's news report started off like this:

METTLER (4/15/21): A day after their son was shot and killed by a Maryland state trooper, the parents of 16-year-old Peyton Alexander Ham said in a statement that their family is “absolutely heartbroken and shattered over this sudden, unexpected loss of life of a talented young man, filled with promise.”

Ham’s parents said the teen was “smart, gifted” and “sweet” with an “ ‘Alex P. Keaton’ type personality.”

“His love of conservative politics [was] always taking center stage to his lively debates at the family dinner table,” his family said.

Few additional details have emerged about the interaction between Ham and police that led to his death Tuesday afternoon in the Leonardtown area of St. Mary’s County, where the teen lived with his family. The name of the trooper who fatally shot Ham has not been released, but state police said he was assigned to the Leonardtown Barrack and had been a Maryland state trooper for two years and seven months.

You haven't heard about this fatal shooting, and you never will. Few details have emerged, and no one is going to give a rat's ascot if they never do.

Should you hear about this shooting? That is a matter of judgment. At first glance, it sounds like the unnamed state trooper may have had reason to shoot this teen, even though the teen was armed with a pair of toy weapons.

Toy weapons of this type look exactly like real weapons. Visually, there's no way to know that the apparent weapons aren't real. 

It may be that the state trooper behaved in an appropriate way. At any rate, no one is going to discuss the ongoing probe of this case, and no one is going to care.

The reason for that is reasonably obvious. The teen who was shot and killed in this case is "white." And as part of the crackpot journalism Cuomo was performing last night, our upper-end press corps leans extremely heavily on (some) such incidents when the decedent is "black," but almost never reports or discusses such incidents where the decedent is "white" (or even Hispanic or Muslim).

That's a lunatic way to do journalism, but it's plainly where we are.

The fatal shooting of Tamir Rice also involved a fully realistic toy gun. In part for that reason, we were curious as we read about this recent case.

How many fatal shootings by police officers involve decedents with toy weapons? As we've done in the past, we checked it out.

The Washington Post's Fatal Force site lists "armed with toy weapons" as a distinct category. So far this year, the Post's site says, police officers across the nation have fatally shot six people who were wielding toy weapons.

This new case will make it seven. Of the seven decedents, six have been "white." The race / ethnicity of one decedent remains "unknown." (See "Discourse on method" below.)

You haven't heard about those seven fatal shootings. We aren't even saying you should have! But on what planet was Cuomo living when he assembled last night's monologue? Or when he received his text from staff and decided it made good sense?

Plenty of people who are "white" are, in fact, fatally shot by police. (That has always been true.) That includes the 16-year-old decedent in Leonardtown, Maryland, whose family says they're shattered, concerning which nobody cares or even pretends to care.

Now for a pair of basic points:

"White" kids already do get shot and killed by police. But as part of a cultural decision which is virtually insane, our national news orgs only discuss such incidents when the decedent is "black."

(Journalism by the Washington Post has made this point quite clear. In two cases in recent years, the Post has tried to focus attention on a a pair of fatal incidents which involved fairly obvious police misconduct. In one case, the victim was white; in the other case, the victim was Muslim. The Post tried and tried to create national interest in these cases. The Post tried very hard, and it failed.)

In a decision which is virtually insane, our national news orgs only discuss such incidents when the decedent is "black." Also this:

When our news orgs discuss those incidents, they routinely falsify information.  They disappear certain types of facts; they invent or embellish others. This has been an astoundingly regular practice over the past ten years. It's who and what we are.

As journalism, this behavior qualifies as stone-cold crazy. (It can be regarded as prehuman, or as "human all too human.") On the societal level, this astounding journalistic behavior serves to create a dangerous, punishing array of misconceptions.

Meanwhile, there was Cuomo, just last night, pontificating from somewhere in La La Land. He seemed to say that "white" people will only care about fatal shootings when "white" kids start getting shot and killed by police. 

On what meat did this cable news Caesar feed when he assembled these latest remarks?

We refer to Cuomo as a clown for the obvious reason. Last year, he and his brother staged a series of clown car performances on his prime time TV program.

If CNN was a serious news org, these clown shows would never have been permitted. The lunacy of this behavior only became more apparent as we all finally learned about the way Chris Cuomo's brother was deceiving us rubes in Our Town about the heroic way he handled the Covid crisis.

The lunacy of our upper-end press corps has been on display for decades. Al Gore said he invented the Internet? That was one part of the deal.

The lunacy has been on full display—but in Our Town, we've been completely unable  to see it. As with Big Lies, so too with Big Dysfunctions:

The more enormous the dysfunction is, the harder it may be to see it.

Our species was never "the rational animal," despondent top experts have said. Meanwhile, our nation is sliding toward the sea based in part on the kind of very strange work Cuomo uncorked last night.

We don't see an easy way out of this mess. More on the topic next week.

As for Cuomo (and his producers), we'd have to say it's time for them to go. That doesn't mean they aren't part of Dr. King's beloved community. It simply means that they've earned their way out of their current roles.

Needless to say, absolutely nothing is going to  change. This is who and what we are. As Caesar once so thoughtfully said, Alia jacta est.

Discourse on method: At present, the Fatal Force site says that six people with "toy weapons" have been fatally shot by police officers this year. Peyton Ham now makes it seven.

At present, Fatal Force lists the race / ethnicity of two of these decedents as "unknown." With about two minutes' effort, we were able to establish, two days ago, that one of the two was "white."

This is who and what we are. We're offering a bit of anthropology with today's report.

Professor Glaude has a better idea!

FRIDAY, APRIL 16, 2021

"Daunte Wright's murder," he says: In his first book, Stride Toward Freedom, Dr. King repeatedly discussed his deep belief in what he called "the love ethic of Jesus."

As a general matter, we humans aren't wired for that. Consider what Professor Glaude said on Brian Williams' program last night. 

(This came in the segment which followed the segment in which Yamiche Alcindor offered her absurd false claim about the marijuana.)

Glaude told Brian how hard it is to have to keep watching the tape of "Daunte Wright's murder." We'd like to show you the full exchange, but the transcript hasn't been posted yet and we don't plan to do more transcribing today. 

Does anybody really believe that what happened last Sunday was a "murder" in any conventional sense of the term? On cable, the more general game has been this:

Every pundit takes his or her turn striking a certain pose. They marvel at how hard it is to believe that Kim Potter could have mistaken her gun for her Taser.

Others have made the same mistake in the past, but this won't affect the minuet the pundits take turns performing. Remember the definition of a contemporary columnist / pundit:

Someone who has nothing to say and a contractual obligation to say it.

In part for those reasons, they love to run with the crowd. They're only happy when they're saying whatever the last six pundits just said, except maybe a little bit louder.

People have made that mistake before. People will make it again.

That said, the typical upper-end pundit has never made a mistake himself and has never seen a colleague make one. For that reason, he or she may find it hard to believe that someone else actually has.

Eventually, along comes the Princeton guy, and he drops the M-bomb. Adapted to a more genteel framework, this is the way the mobs used to work in Glaude's native part of the country.

Dr. King loved that love ethic. As current stampedes are making plain, we humans aren't wired for that.

Professor Glaude is a good, decent person but, or so the experts say, this is what our species is like!

MADDOW AND TOWN: Ignorance, posturing, incomprehension!

FRIDAY, APRIL 16, 2021

And a clown shall lead them: Brian Williams opened last evening's show in the normal way.

He thanked the "three friends of the broadcast" who had agreed to serve as his opening pundit panel.  Marketing / branding requirements satisfied, Brian threw to Yamiche Alcindor, one of his many friends. 

Alcindor works for the PBS NewsHour. It's one of the most respected news orgs in Our Town.

Previously, she'd shot up the chain at the New York Times, Our Town's smartest newspaper.

After receiving some bathos from Paul Butler, Williams threw to Alcindor. Moving beyond the question she'd been asked, Alcindor proceeded to state her view of the shooting death of Daunte Wright.

Seriously though, folks! To our surprise and to our lack of surprise, this is what Alcindor said:

ALCINDOR (4/15/21): I have to tell you, I've talked to so many people who feel that this is just trauma on top of trauma, that— 

You can imagine, of course, there's some who way, "Why run from the police? Why try to get away from them?" But there are people who are simply terrified of the police, for good reason in some ways, watching this video. 

So the mother and family of Daunte Wright today said, Can you imagine what Dante was probably feeling as he had three officers surrounding him for what seemed like a minor infraction having to do with a warrant for marijuana, a business that people make money with all over the country? So I think there really needs to be a big conversation about that.

WILLIAMS: Yeah, a 20-year-old in a Buick that was a gift to him. Yamiche, you're so right.

"Yamiche, you're so right," the giant star said, immediately after she had issued her latest remarkable howler.

In a word, say what? Last Sunday, Daunte Wright was being arrested on the basis of "a minor infraction having to do with a warrant for marijuana?"

Just like that, the demon air fresheners had been brushed aside. The demon fresheners had been replaced by a minor marijuana infraction! 

As Alcindor and Williams spoke, the analysts came out of their chairs. Even they had never heard this  misstatement before!

(A brief aside: As far as we know, the Wright family made no claims yesterday about a marijuana warrant. To peruse the transcript of their press event, you can just click here.)

This morning, the analysts went to work fact-checking Alcindor's latest. As it turns out, the claim the NewsHour star advanced was so obscure that only one news org had previously fact-checked it—Agence France Presse (AFP), one of the world's major news orgs.

You can read the AFP Fact Check here. Below, you see the agency's bold-face summary of the bogus factual claim:

AFP FACT CHECK (4/15/21): Social media posts claim Daunte Wright, a 20-year-old Black man who was fatally shot by police in Minnesota, was wanted for not paying a fine for marijuana possession. This is false; while there was a previous cannabis-related charge involving Wright, the warrant for his arrest was issued because he failed to appear in court over illegal possession of a weapon and fleeing the police.

Sad. The fact-check traces this inaccurate claim to a set of "social media posts" by unidentified people. Presumably, that's where Alcindor stumbled across, and decided to buy, the stupid, inaccurate claim.

"Yamiche, you're so right," her well-dressed host quickly said. In the process, he added some bathos to the melodrama being shoveled to us in Our Town.

Quickly, a key disclaimer:

Here at this site, we don't believe in "bad people." On balance, we don't believe that it's constructive to try to figure out who the good and the bad people are.

We do believe in terrible work. And it's good that we don't believe in bad people. Otherwise, it would be hard to avoid holding contempt for people like the well-dressed, wonderfully-coiffed TV star who served as Alcindor's host.

Just imagine! Last evening's program was the fourth program during which the shooting death of Daunte Wright was discussed on Williams' hour-long program. 

That said, how does Williams perform his job? We ask you to understand this:

On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday nights, neither Williams nor anyone else ever reported the actual basis on which Wright was being arrested that day. No one reported that he was being arrested on a warrant related to the illegal possession of a gun and a previous flight from arrest.

Three straight nights had gone by; our spotless minds had been shielded from any such knowledge. (Over on Fox, viewers were being told.) . Instead, Williams had merely said, on two of those nights, that police had tried to arrest Wright on an "outstanding misdemeanor warrant." 

That was technically accurate as far as it went, but it hadn't gone very far. Now, on his fourth night discussing this case, the well-dressed corporate TV star took things down several levels:

Alcindor gave a baldly inaccurate account of the basis for the attempted arrest. As she did, she almost seemed to recommend fleeing arrest—and in reply, the well-coiffed anchor could only offer this:

Yamiche, you're so right!

"Yamiche, you're so right!" That's what Brian said!

In fact, Yamiche was stunningly wrong in her statement. Meanwhile, her appalling misstatement was helping to drive an ugly storyline. 

Why do we use the latter term? Because her claim was part of a swelling attempt to demonize police as a class on the basis of bogus claims; to try to get people thrown into jail on the basis of bogus claims; and in this case, even to seem to suggest that people like Wright should try to flee legitimate arrest. 

It's hard to feel sufficient contempt for the conduct of someone like Williams in seconding such a misstatement. That said, to what extent are basic facts being withheld from the people who watch Williams' nightly program?

To what extent have the facts been withheld? Good God! Consider this:

This morning, we're going to link you to  a report in the Washington Times!

Twenty years ago, the famously conservative newspaper was well-known and quite influential. Today, it's still a deeply conservative paper, but it plays almost no role in the discourse.

Today, the Washington Times is an afterthought; Alcindor and Williams are stars. But in this news report in the Washington Times, you get a detailed rundown of the legal issues confronting Wright Sunday afternoon as he drove around in the Buick which Williams so pointlessly cited.

There's at least one part of this background story we don't yet understand. We don't understand what happened to the initial part of the story described in this passage:

RICHARDSON (4/14/21): “A 26-year veteran of the force knows the difference between a Taser and a firearm,” said [Wright attorney Benjamin] Crump in a Wednesday statement. “Kim Potter executed Daunte for what amounts to no more than a minor traffic infraction and a misdemeanor warrant.”

According to Hennepin County District Court documents, however, Mr. Wright had been charged with aggravated armed robbery, a felony that carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison and a $35,000 fine.

His release on $100,000 bail was revoked July 30 over two violations: “Failure to not possess a firearm or ammunition” and “Failure to maintain contact with probation.”

The charging document said that Mr. Wright, then 19, went to a party in Osseo with a friend, Emajay Maurice Driver, after which they slept on the floor at the apartment of a female friend of Mr. Driver’s from high school. She said she had only met Mr. Wright that night.

In the morning, she received $820 in cash from another person for rent. She heard Mr. Wright tell his friend that they should “hit some stains,” which she said meant robbing someone, but she thought he was joking.

As they left the apartment, however, Mr. Wright turned around, blocked the door to stop her from exiting, then “pulled a black handgun with silver trim out from either his right waistband or his right coat pocket and pointed it at VICTIM and demanded the rent money.”

The report in the Washington Times continues on from there.  For an account of these matters derived from Snopes, see yesterday's report.

Alcindor works from inaccurate Facebook posts. By way of contrast, Valerie Richardson quotes extensively from court records in her account of the situation which occasioned the attempted arrest of Wright.

As they spread their bogus claim last night, Alcindor and Williams made the background situation sound remarkably minor.  This enables a figure like Crump as he tells the public and the world that Kim Potter executed Daunte Wright—that she "executed" him for "what amounts to no more than a minor traffic infraction and a misdemeanor warrant.”

Crump's behavior is inexcusable. That said, the guilt-ridden posers who swarm in Our Town will pander to every word he emits. This dates all the way back to the Crump team's blatant misstatements about the Trayvon Martin case.

Our Town is performing quite poorly. Stars like Alcindor will go on TV and make bald misstatements about what occurred. Multimillionaires like Williams will sardonically second their claims.

We the people get dumbed way down in the process. The upper-end press corps' role in this gong-show dates back at least three decades.

Last night, a new element was added to this story. We refer to the videotape of the shooting death of Adam Toledo, age 13. More on that pitiful topic will come, but in closing for today, we'll report one more reaction.

We'll share the reaction we had to a relatively innocuous piece by Slate's Dan Kois.

Over at Slate, it fell to Kois to post the videotape of the Toledo shooting. He ended his very short piece on this mandated note:

KOIS (4/15/21): Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot has called for peace in the wake of the video release and said in a press conference that the video is “excruciating.” It is.

We don't know Dan Kois at all. But we don't believe a word he said, including the words "It is."

Sorry! We don't believe our mainstream pundits when they say how upset they are. We don't believe them because we've watched their work in this general area ever since we were in college.

We don't believe them because we read reports like this at New York magazine. What a monument to undisguised group indifference concerning the needs and the interests of low-income urban kids!

We don't believe that our pundits care. In substantial part, we don't believe them because they let a clown like Rachel Maddow sit at the very head of Our Town's clown parade.

We expect to go into an array of such matters next week. For today, we recommend this:

Just look at what Alcindor said. Please take a lesson—an anthropology lesson—from the astonishing claim she made, and from her host's reaction.

They disappear the facts they don't like. They invent quite a few others. This is the way our brains are wired, major top experts have said.

This is the way it's done in Our Town. Despite the ways we praise ourselves, you will almost never see a single word of complaint!

Spoiler alert: Williams should correct the record tonight. You already know he won't!