politicnewsbusterinsiderpostreview: Daily Digest

Saturday, 27 February 2021

Daily Digest

A City Prepares for a Trial
Podcast: The 3WHH, with Suds for Spuds, Studs, and Duds
Sen. Cotton at CPAC
Rachel Levine: Wanted or wanting?
The Week in Pictures: Woke Coke Edition

Posted: 27 Feb 2021 04:03 PM PST

(John Hinderaker)

Derek Chauvin goes on trial for murder in the death of George Floyd on March 8. His trial has been separated from that of the other three officers who have been charged; theirs will begin in August. Chauvin is the principal defendant. Of the four policemen involved, two were on something like their fourth day on the job. The third was a tiny guy, also not very experienced. Chauvin was the only officer on the scene who had the experience and the strength to deal with an oversized career criminal who was hopped up on drugs, and he took the lead.

The city of Minneapolis awaits Chauvin’s trial anxiously. A local left-wing outlet reports:

The area around the downtown Minneapolis courthouse where Derek Chauvin will soon go on trial for the murder of George Floyd is gradually taking on the look of military occupation. Concrete barriers, boarded-up windows and barbed wire clad the buildings. A security force of 2,000 National Guard troops and 1,100 outstate police officers will soon be on patrol.

Governor Tim Walz wanted a $35 million appropriation for emergency security for the trial, but I don’t think the legislature gave it to him. Why are the authorities so concerned? In part, because professional leftist agitators and rioters are preparing for battle. Activist groups have already announced plans for “protests,” beginning on the first day of the trial. And in part because they have painted themselves into a corner.

I believe it was the day after Floyd’s death when Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey publicly questioned the fact that the four police officers were still free men. Why weren’t they already in jail? And Governor Walz has publicly pronounced the officers guilty of “murder.” Meanwhile, though, it has come out that Floyd’s blood contained two or three times a lethal dose of fentanyl. He also showed the classic symptoms of a fentanyl overdose, complaining repeatedly of an inability to breathe and foaming at the mouth. His autopsy revealed that his lungs were heavier than normal, reflecting the accumulation of fluid that occurs with a fentanyl overdose. So it is far from clear that Derek Chauvin murdered anyone, or indeed that the four police officers had anything to do with Floyd’s death, which apparently, based on the evidence now available, was caused by a drug overdose.

But it is much too late for the authorities to acknowledge that their case against Chauvin et al. is far from airtight. They are committed. What we don’t know is whether an impartial jury can be empaneled, and whether any jury will have the courage to return a verdict of not guilty. Everyone in Minneapolis knows that the authorities were not able to defend even the Third Precinct Station House, which was taken over and burned by rioters. Nor were they able to defend a two-mile stretch of Lake Street, or other areas in Minneapolis and St. Paul that were destroyed by mobs. What juror will be willing to count on the authorities to protect his own house from being burned down, if he fails to return the verdict that is demanded by the mob?

Still, the authorities evidently are worried that a jury might be bold enough not to return the expected verdict. Thus, they are beginning an effort to mollify citizens who–based in part on the Mayor’s and Governor’s prejudicial statements–are expecting a murder conviction.

[T]he city is also turning to what political scientists would call "soft power," enlisting the aid of grassroots organizations and even social media influencers to disseminate factual information and diffuse what some fear will be a combustible event in the life of the city.

The city is paying “social media influencers” to spread the party line among those who might be tempted to riot. It is also advertising on radio stations whose audiences are minority communities, and undertaking an effort to educate Minneapolitans on how the legal system works:

The city plans to share information on the ground and online and get input from the public through community members who meet regularly; create safety toolkits for residents and community groups and form a "community information network," including partnerships with media that reach under-represented communities that don't rely on mainstream media for news.
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The city is also using "trusted community messengers" to translate trial-related information.
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One of those is the nonprofit community law firm, the Legal Rights Center, which is working with the NAACP and law schools to provide accurate information about the legal system before and during the trials.

Executive Director Sarah Davis said with the trial being livestreamed, a lot of people will be watching who don't typically have that kind of front-row seat, and it's not going to be like trials you see on TV.

I didn’t know that the trial will be live-streamed. This could be a local version of the O.J. Simpson trial.

Their lawyers will help the public understand the criminal justice system, teaching things like the difference between "probable cause" to charge somebody versus "proof beyond reasonable doubt," which is needed for a conviction; the elements of the alleged offenses; what a jury is.

It seems a little late for that. This part, I don’t really understand:

City officials plan regular briefings to keep the public abreast of trial-related preparations and responses and combat misinformation.

What “misinformation” will they try to combat? Chauvin’s defense?

I have tried many jury cases in a number of states, and I have high regard for the integrity and common sense with which the vast majority of Americans approach jury duty. But rarely have we seen a trial where the atmosphere has been so polluted with pretrial publicity, where a defendant’s guilt has been confidently pronounced not only by nearly every commentator and journalist in sight, but by senior government officials, and where jurors will have every reason to fear that if they return the “wrong” verdict, a mob awaits them. I think the likelihood that Derek Chauvin can get a fair trial is remote.

Still, an uneasiness has settled over the City of Minneapolis. The authorities dealt incompetently with the rioting that occurred last May and June. They may have a chance to try to do better in the Spring.

Podcast: The 3WHH, with Suds for Spuds, Studs, and Duds

Posted: 27 Feb 2021 08:44 AM PST

(Steven Hayward)

This week has something for everybody, as our three segments (we actually stick to format this week!) range from Mr. Potato Head (now Zir Potatx Head apparently) to Winston Churchill, with a detour to throw some rotten tomatoes at Smith College, and then on to a sequel of sorts to last week's seminar, in which we point out how today's leftist racism is the direct descendant of the "scientific racism" of the Old Confederacy.

And we do this while beta-testing custom Three Whisky Happy Hour glasses that we hope will be offered through a Power Line swag store at some point (assuming we can ever get our merch act together). These glasses are, as we note at the beginning, very heavy in design, and can double as a self-defense weapon.

First up, we celebrate a major literary achievement, the republication, for the first time in 120 years, of the unabridged edition of Winston Churchill's third book, The River War, his account of the reconquest of the Sudan in 1898. We explain why Churchill withdrew and suppressed the original edition, and published a much shorter version that people have been reading ever since. But the original edition is a masterpiece, containing especially some bracing statements about Islam, among other things. This masterfully restored two-volume edition( same as the original) comes with copious annotations from editor James Muller, and it even contains the fold-out maps of the very rare original edition (which has always been hard to find, and costs many thousands of dollars to buy even if you could find a copy). We share a couple of favorite passages, and then move on to. . .

The disgrace at Smith College! As reported in, of all places, the New York Times, as we noted here a couple days ago. Was Nicole Hannah-Jones on vacation the day this news story came in the door?

Finally, we trace the trouble at Smith College (and everywhere else these days) to the fact that the Democratic Party in principle really hasn't changed since its old days as the vanguard of the Confederacy. We put Alexander Stephens, the vice president of the Confederate States of America, into our witness box, and notice how much he sounds like a contributor to the 1619 Project. Drink up!

You know what to do now: go buy The River War (yeah, I know it’s really expensive, but worth it to support such a valiant publishing effort by St. Augustine’s Press), then listen here, or over at our hosts at Ricochet.

This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Sen. Cotton at CPAC

Posted: 27 Feb 2021 06:52 AM PST

(Scott Johnson)

Senator Tom Cotton spoke to the assembled multitude in free Florida at CPAC yesterday. Among other things, he recalled the chaos he sowed inside the New York Times with the publication of his column calling for federal troops to restore order in riot-torn cities last year. Times staffers protested that the column put the lives of “Black @NYTimes staff in danger."

The column caused a "total meltdown with the little social justice warriors at The New York Times,” as he put it, “all these children that have been marinated in the language of the campus seminar room.” He recalled, "They said things like, 'your words put my life at risk,’ as if typing on their phone, sitting on their futons, was as dangerous as being a cop trying to stop rioters in the streets. Or, 'your words are violence.' No, I'm sorry kiddo: words are words; violence is what your friends are doing out on the streets of America." The internal revolt at the paper led to the resignation of Times opinion page editor James Bennet.

Senator Cotton posted highlights of his speech on his Twitter feed. You can catch them scrolling up or down from the one below (via Zachary Evans/NR). The New York Post also covered the speech here in delightful detail.

So I wrote an op-ed in the @nytimes…#CPAC2021 pic.twitter.com/1D4CqOcUez

— Tom Cotton (@TomCottonAR) February 26, 2021

Or you can watch the speech in its entirety in the video below.

Rachel Levine: Wanted or wanting?

Posted: 27 Feb 2021 05:32 AM PST

(Scott Johnson)

Michael Halberstam was the older brother of the prominent journalist David Halberstam. By trade, the elder Halberstam was a cardiologist. He died way too soon as the result of a gunshot wound he sustained during the robbery of his D.C. residence.

Dr. Halberstam seems to have been the wittier of the two brothers. In his spare time he wrote the unjustly neglected satirical novel The Wanting of Levine (1978) about the first Jewish president. Even if it petered out toward the end, the novel nevertheless proved prescient in at least one respect — as Ira Stoll observed in the 2017 New York Sun column “Trump's Electoral Triumph Was Imagined in a Novel Written 40 Years Ago.”

Halberstam’s novel came to mind this week in connection with President Biden’s nomination of Dr. Rachel Levine to be assistant secretary of Health and Human Services. Dr. Levine testified before the Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions (HELP!) Committee in support of her confirmation this past Thursday.

She seemed to me the embodiment of a satirical take on identity politics. One can’t help but wonder whether the proximate cause of her selection is that she is yet another of the “firsts” about which Biden has bragged. She is biologically male, but identifies as transgender female. She will be the first avowed transgender federal official to be confirmed by the Senate.

Biden nominated her on the proposition that in Levine the woman and the moment have met: "Dr. Rachel Levine will bring the steady leadership and essential expertise we need to get people through this pandemic — no matter their zip code, race, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability — and meet the public health needs of our country in this critical moment and beyond," Biden said in a statement. Biden added: "She is a historic and deeply qualified choice to help lead our administration's health efforts." Biden’s reference to her as a “historic choice” is the key.

In her appearance before the committee Senator Paul inquired about the use of puberty-blocking drugs and surgical amputations for minors with gender dysphoria. Starting with our general condemnation of genital mutilation from social custom or pressure, Paul raised the question whether minors should be permitted to have themselves altered (video below).

The Washington Post has yet to cover Amazon’s suppression of Ryan Anderson’s When Harry Became Sally on this question. The Post nevertheless went ballistic condemning Senator Paul for his line of inquiry. According to Post columnist Monica Hesse, “Thursday was a day of historic firsts, of alarm and outrage” — all (the alarm and outrage, anyway) thanks to Senator Paul posing this question:

Dr. Levine, you have supported both allowing minors to be given hormone blockers to prevent them from going through puberty as well as surgical destruction of a minor's genitalia.

Like surgical mutilation, hormonal interruption of puberty can permanently alter and prevent secondary sexual characteristics.

The American College of Pediatricians reports that 80% to 95% of prepubertal children with gender dysphoria will experience resolution by late adolescence if not exposed to medical intervention and social affirmation.

Dr. Levine, do you believe that minors are capable of making such a life-changing decision as changing one's sex?

Levine provided a classic Washington response: “Transgender medicine is a very complex and nuanced field with robust research and standards of care that have been developed.” It was a nonanswer. Nevertheless, as they say, she persisted. She graciously added that "if confirmed to the position of assistant secretary of health, I would certainly be pleased to come to your office and to talk to you and your staff about the standards of care and the complexity of this field."

Committee chair Patty Murray provided the unintentionally humorous conclusion to Senator Paul’s futile inquiries: “Senator [sic] Levine, thank you for answering the question [sic].”

Via Madeleine Kearns/NR and Harris Rigby/Not the Bee and Matt Hadro/National Catholic Register.

The Week in Pictures: Woke Coke Edition

Posted: 27 Feb 2021 03:15 AM PST

(Steven Hayward)

Coca-Cola’s new motto was unveiled last week: “Have a Coke and some bile!” Or maybe “It’s the zeal thing!” “Things go better with woke?” 1989’s official slogan can also be modified to fit the times: “The official soft drink of summer (riot season).” And when can we get some Woke Zero?? And what’s all this about Mr. Potato Head going genderless? Mr. Coffee is going to be very upset. Meanwhile, if governors were corporate bonds, Cuomo would be downgraded to junk status, and Newsom would be put on the watch list. But then the Fed would buy them out—that’s what the Fed is for right now!