B-Man

SO OBAMA’S GOING TO ADDRESS THE NATION? Funny, because I remember what a running joke this became during his presidency. Obama could have been a racial healer. But — and this is very important — he never wanted to be one. Related: Former Obama Intelligence Official Helps Secure Bail for Molotov Cocktail-Throwing NYC Lawyer.

What a principled hero............

THE NUMBERS DON’T SUPPORT BLM CLAIMS ABOUT THE POLICE Are black lives in danger due to “systemic racism” in American policing? Are “black and brown bodies” under systematic assault by white racists? The numbers from recent years suggest that the answer to both questions is “no.” There are few instances in which unarmed blacks are killed by white police officers. To the extent that, in these instances, the police officer acted wrongfully, the officer must be held fully accountable. However, the low number of instances compared to the frequency of encounters undercuts any claim of a systemic policing problem in this regard. Similarly, the statistics on interracial violence undercut the claim that white racists pose a serious threat to black and brown bodies. Blacks engage in violence against whites far more frequently than whites engage in violence against blacks. Today, I want to examine the 2019 numbers on police shootings. Daniel Horowitz reports them here, citing the Washington Post’s database. According to the Post’s data, nine unarmed black people were shot dead by cops in 2019. Nineteen unarmed white people shared the same fate. These numbers confirm that black lives are not in danger due to systemic police racism. Nine incidents do not demonstrate a systemic problem. If the nine killings were all unjustified, that would be nine too many. However, Horowitz cites a series of tweets that analyze the nine cases. If the facts presented in these tweets are accurate, it seems that most of the nine killings were justified. More at the link

ROD ROSENSTEIN ON FISA LIES: I’M ACCOUNTABLE BUT NOT RESPONSIBLE This morning, the Senate Judiciary Committee called Rod Rosenstein to testify about operation “crossfire hurricane,” the Mueller investigation, and related matters. I watched as much of it as I could stomach — a little less than two hours. Rosenstein is a snake. He recommended that James Comey be fired (albeit for a different reason than the one Trump mentioned in an interview about Comey’s termination) and then made the firing of Comey the grounds for bringing in a special counsel. Moreover, he selected Robert Mueller for the job even though President Trump had just rejected Mueller for the position of FBI director. Mueller was thus a disappointed office seeker. Rosenstein gave Mueller a ridiculously broad writ to investigate, and stood by as Mueller hired one Trump-hating Democrat after another to staff his project. And Rosenstein declined to recuse himself even though he was a player in the firing of Comey — an important element of what he asked Mueller to investigate. Rosenstein was snake-like again this morning. Most of the questions directed at him by Republicans had to do with his rubber stamping of applications to spy on Carter Page — applications that contained lies the Democrats had paid to procure and that were based on Russian disinformation. Rosenstein told the Committee that he is “accountable” for this outrage, but not “responsible.” Pressed as to what he means by “accountable,” he said, in effect, he means appearing before the Committee to say he’s not responsible. The Committee Democrats were their usual nauseating selves. They used their time mostly to (1) complain about the fact that the hearing is taking place and (2) bray about how Russia threatens our democracy. But our democracy is threatened when partisans in the FBI who want to defeat a presidential candidate, and then want to “resist” the elected president, repeatedly lie to a court so they can spy on that candidate’s campaign. And, for all the noise about Russia, it doesn’t matter to Committee Dems that disinformation from Russians was at the heart of the FBI’s lying to the court and to others. Of course, it doesn’t matter to them. The Russian disinformation was accumulated in a project paid for by Democrats. More at the link

BORIS JOHNSON OFFERS HONG KONG RESIDENTS REFUGE, PATH TO U.K. CITIZENSHIP IF CHINA CRACKS DOWN.

WITH ALL THE DEMOCRATS BUYING GUNS SINCE THE PANDEMIC AND THE RIOTS, IS GUN CONTROL EVEN A THING NOW? Virginia’s Gun Rights Battle Spawned the Second Amendment Sanctuary Movement.

Sorry. I am way too old to fall for the willful ignorance routine The fact that the continuing breakup of the American family contributes to the RIOTING...............not the murder as you tried to say. is so obvious as to preclude me from trying to explain it to such closed minds as yours.

Well planned ahead. .

The Joe Biden campaign on Tuesday sent an email to its supporters that highlighted "George Floyd's last words" in a message that included a link for people to donate to the campaign, a move which drew criticism The lengthy email tore into President Trump's handling of the unrest following Floyd's death last week while in the custody of the Minneapolis Police Department, called for an end to violence from rioters and said that Biden would create a "national police oversight commission." The message was saved by "The Archive of Political Emails," a project run by the Defending Democracy Together Institute

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE “PUBLIC HEALTH EMERGENCY?”: Remember when we had to listen to the allegedly unanimous opinion of public health experts that nothing, literally NOTHING, was more important that social distancing to prevent the spread of Coronavirus? I agree that it’s important (regardless of whether the particular incident of excessive use of force by police in question was a product of racism or just routine police brutality). I also think that putting 30% of the public out of work is important, indeed more important, especially given that racism is a persistent issue that will create plenty of protest opportunities, whereas destroying millions of people’s livelihoods was immediate. Some of my social media friends have been insisting for some time that many of the hardcore lockdown/social distancing advocates were less concerned about public health and more about imposing their own value system against what they considered an unenlightened public, and some subset of those people actually welcomed the lockdown because they prefer people to live on the government dole that to allow “capitalist exploitation.” I’m not, to say the least, a big fan of the political and public health establishment, but I nevertheless thought this was too cynical. Yet today we see Mayor DeBlasio arguing that protesting racism is more important than being banned from attending religious services indefinitely, and Governor Murphy of New Jersey stating that protests against racism may flout social distancing rules, but he’s going to continue to enforce them against lockdown opponents. Worse yet, Slate reports that: I don’t think anyone who knows me would describe me as at all credulous, but I think I need to get even more cynical. UPDATE: Just a few days ago, Yale epidemiologist Gregg Gonsalves, was literally accusing President Trump of “genocide” for not taking stronger measure to contain Covid-19. Today, he signed the “protests against racism are more important than stopping the spread of Covid-19” letter.

WE’LL TURN THEM ‘ROUND AND ‘ROUND: Arrested Looters in NYC Are Immediately Released Because of Bail-Reform Law. .

THE NARRATIVE THAT WILL NOT DISPERSE: No, Peaceful Protesters Were Not Tear-Gassed So Trump Could Do a Photo-Op.