[guest post by Dana]

Happy weekend! It’s a sweltering mess here as summer rudely announced itself ahead of schedule. Here are a few news items to talk about. Please feel free to share anything you think readers might be interested in and make sure to include links.

First news item

Politicians gonna politic:

Sen. Raphael Warnock (D., Ga.) sent a fundraising email asking recipients to identify their support for “repealing strict and burdensome voter ID laws” just hours after he claimed he has “never been opposed to voter ID.”

…

Just hours earlier, NBC News published a report in which Warnock claimed he has “never been opposed to voter ID” and “in fact” does not “know anybody who is.”

Warnock, however, has attacked voter ID laws for years.

In 2018, he penned an Atlanta Journal-Constitution opinion piece invoking Martin Luther King Jr. to chastise Georgia’s “unnecessary and discriminatory voter ID laws.” Two years earlier, Warnock gave a lecture lamenting “all of these voter suppression laws saying we’ve got to have voter ID laws because if we don’t they might vote twice,” adding, “Are you kidding?”

During a 2015 sermon, Warnock said “dealing with these voter ID laws … is not about voter verification, this is about voter suppression.” And in 2012, he labeled voter ID laws “unnecessary and unjustifiable,” according to the Augusta Chronicle.

Related:

Why the change of heart, @staceyabrams? pic.twitter.com/Le11w1pjJS

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) June 18, 2021

Second news item

Catholic bishops get to work:

A committee of U.S. Catholic bishops is getting to work on a policy document that has stirred controversy among their colleagues before a word of it has even been written.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops overwhelmingly approved the drafting of a document “on the meaning of the Eucharist in the life of the Church” that some bishops hope will be a rebuke for politicians who support abortion rights but continue to receive Communion.

The 168-55 vote to proceed, vehemently opposed by a minority of bishops amid impassioned debate during virtual meetings, came despite appeals from the Vatican for a more cautious and collegial approach.

Here’s a good analysis.

Third news item

Hey, he was just another one of those tourists:

The Justice Department on Thursday released horrifying new police body camera footage from the January 6 assault on the US Capitol, after CNN and other outlets requested the tapes.

The footage was used in the case against Thomas Webster, a former Marine and retired police officer from the New York City Police Department accused of participating in the Capitol attack.
Prosecutors say that the 56-second tape shows Webster, wearing a red coat among a large crowd of pro-Trump rioters, screaming profanities at officers, threateningly wielding a flagpole, and finally rushing at the officers, who engaged in hand-to-hand combat with him and other members of the mob. One of the officers eventually wrestles away the flagpole, but Webster then tackles the cop to the ground.
In addition to the new video, photos in charging documents show Webster straddling and grabbing at the officer who was wearing the body camera and was thrown to the ground. He has been charged with seven federal crimes, including assaulting police, unlawfully entering Capitol grounds with a dangerous weapon and civil disorder. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

Fourth news item

Mike Pence trying to get a word in edgewise:

Former Vice President Mike Pence was heckled with cries of “Traitor!” as he delivered a speech at the conservative Faith & Freedom Coalition conference in Orlando, Florida. The booing and name-calling presumably came from Trump loyalists who are still sore that Pence chose not to subvert the election of President Joe Biden. Pence tweeted out clips of his speech that did not include the cacophony—which resulted in some people being escorted out of the event.

Pence gets drowned out by hecklers at the Faith & Freedom Coalition summit, some of whom appear to be chanting "traitor!" pic.twitter.com/pAQxavsK3O

— Andrew Solender (@AndrewSolender) June 18, 2021

David French accurately notes:

“Faith and Freedom Coalition.” Those are Christian activists, and they’re heckling Trump’s own VP and loyal servant for four years (minus one day) because that one critical day he refused try to overturn an election and potentially destroy the American republic.

Fifth news item

Mexcico penalized:

Mexico’s national team will play its first two home matches in World Cup qualifying without spectators, a penalty for its fans’ use of an anti-gay chant during last spring’s pre-Olympic tournament in Guadalajara, the country’s soccer federation announced at a Mexico City news conference Friday.

The games Mexico will play behind closed doors are against Jamaica on Sept. 2 and Canada on Oct. 7. The federation was also fined $73,000 following an investigation by FIFA, the world governing body for soccer.

“What for some seemed to be fun, I have news for you. It isn’t,” Yon de Luisa, the president of the Mexican federation, said at the news conference. “Because of it we’re kept out of the stadium and kept away from our national team. Please stop. Stop now.”

Sixth news item

Kudos:

Opal Lee is 94, and she’s doing a holy dance.

It’s a dance she said she and her ancestors have been waiting 155 years, 11 months and 28 days to do.

Ever since Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger rode into Galveston, Texas, on June 19, 1865, to spread the news of the Emancipation Proclamation outlawing slavery in Confederate states. President Abraham Lincoln had signed it more than two years earlier.

“And now we can all finally celebrate. The whole country together,” Lee told NPR minutes after a landslide House vote on Wednesday approving legislation establishing the day, now known as Juneteenth, as a federal holiday to commemorate the end of slavery in the United States.

President Biden signed the bill on Thursday, and Lee was standing beside him during the ceremony.

TCW is spot-on:

My father is from Galveston, Texas, and before it became a mainstream convo, Juneteenth was something that he mentioned every June 19th, not because he based his identity on it, or because it kept him from being fully American. To call it "lame" is reprehensible.

— Thomas Chatterton Williams 🌍 🎧 (@thomaschattwill) June 18, 2021

Seventh news item

Charles C.W. Cooke wonders if CCP leaders had written this piece on China’s alleged “staggering” success in fighting Covid that CNN journalists wrote, would it have read any differently?:

For those still reluctant, China has a powerful tool in its arsenal: a top-down, one-party system that is all-encompassing in reach and forceful in action, and a sprawling bureaucracy that can be swiftly mobilized.

The top-down approach has been touted by officials as a strength of the Chinese system that helped curb the virus — and has again been deployed to accelerate inoculations.

Breaking: The Chinese Communist Party is impressed by the way the Chinese Communist Party works.

Eighth news item

Ah:

Senate Democrats repeatedly claimed that Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett would strike down the Affordable Care Act (ACA) — also known as Obamacare — if she was confirmed, but those predictions were proven false on Thursday.

Barrett voted with the majority in a 7-2 decision to uphold Obamacare on Thursday.

Have a great weekend.

–Dana

Read this entire piece by Robby Soave:

Until last year, Daniel Elder—a 34-year-old musician who lives in Nashville, Tennessee—had a promising career ahead of him. The theme of the prize-winning composer’s work, truth through emotion, is evident across his catalogue of choral music, including his debut commercial album, The Heart’s Reflection.

Elder isn’t composing very much these days. And even if he were, no one in the industry is willing to buy his work. His publisher has blackballed him. Local choral directors refuse to program his music for fear of provoking a backlash. They won’t even let him sing in the choir.

His offense? Being dismayed by arson committed by protesters.

On May 30, around 1,000 peaceful protesters marched down the streets of Nashville as part of an “I Will Breathe” rally. But not everyone on the streets was peaceful: A group of activists joined the protest as it was drawing to a close and started smashing windows and spraying graffiti on the sides of buildings. They threw rocks at police cars, and eventually someone set the city’s historic courthouse on fire.

“The courthouse windows were smashed, its walls were spray painted with graffiti and fires were started inside the building, damaging a portion of the mayor’s office,” noted the Nashville Tennessean. “A plaque commemorating the civil rights movement in Nashville was destroyed.”

The destruction spooked Elder, who lived nearby and was thus under a city-wide curfew.

. . . .

Dismayed, disenchanted, and unable to sleep, Elder decided to delete his Instagram account. He penned one last farewell message, which was cross-posted to his Twitter and professional Facebook page: “Enjoy burning it all down, you well-intentioned, blind people. I’m done.”

And that’s all it took. The social media mob gathered, grabbed their virtual pitchforks and torches, and marched. It worked. His publisher wrote out an entire obsequious apology for him to deliver, full of the kind of absurd groveling and struggle-session platitudes we’ve all heard a million times before. Problem is, the guy refused to deliver it. Because he hadn’t done anything wrong. So his publisher — really the only game in town for his type of music — dumped him. He’s struggled since with mental health issues, inability to write, you name it.

The topic of race is impossible to discuss in this country. Anything you say, no matter how obviously true or inoffensive, can cause your life to be turned upside down in an instant. We have all seen the stories. This is just a particularly ridiculous example, but it’s hardly the only one.

I listened to a little of this guy’s music, linked in the article, and enjoyed it. I might buy his album.

[guest post by JVW]

This is just sad:

The Auckland, New Zealand, chapter of a climate organization inspired by activist Greta Thunberg disbanded itself on Saturday because it was a “racist,” “white-dominated space,” the group announced in a Facebook post on Saturday.

School Strike 4 Climate, a movement of student protests against global warming, began in the wake of Thunberg’s activism and ballooned into widespread student strikes in 2019. Around 20,000 New Zealand students went on strike in March 2019, organized by School Strike New Zealand, which describes itself as “the New Zealand movement of Greta Thunberg’s strikes in Europe.”

The Auckland branch of the group said on Saturday that it had agreed to dissolve.

“BIPOC communities are disproportionately affected by climate change, so the fight for climate justice should be led by their voices and needs, not Pākehā [white New Zealander] ones,” the group wrote on Facebook. “We are disbanding because, since 2019, SS4C AKL (as well as the wider national group, though we can’t speak on their behalf) has been a racist, white-dominated space.”

Hey, if climate activism turned out to be something of a drag when there are more fun things for teenagers to do while skipping school, then just come out and admit it. No need to abase yourself with Maoist confessions of wrong-doing. It’s hard to read a statement like this one and not instantly think of the sort of psychological manipulation commonly found in cults. And this level of white racial posturing doesn’t sit well with one of the group’s founders:

Sophie Handford, one of the founders of School Strike New Zealand, expressed skepticism of the move in a statement to The Guardian. Hanford coordinated the group in 2019.

“There is a real need to cede space to Indigenous-led kaupapa [policy] and to transform the movement so that it can properly uphold the collective aspiration of climate justice,” Hanford said. However, “I’m a little concerned that this sends a message of division or that not everyone is needed.”

The bad news and the good news is that these are teenagers. The bad part being that the teen years are already often fraught with emotional peril, so forcing these kids to confess their alleged racism strikes me as a particularly ugly form of bullying. The good part is there is a chance that as these kids mature they will see just how silly all of this racial posturing is and will regret that they so readily fell for all of this garbage. But it’s past time that sane adults step in and put a stop to the nonsense.

– JVW

[guest post by Dana]

Shameful:

Rep. Andrew Clyde, a Georgia Republican who has downplayed the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, refused to shake hands with Michael Fanone, a Washington, DC Metropolitan police officer who was assaulted by pro-Trump rioters while protecting the Capitol, two members of Congress announced on Wednesday.

Rep. Eric Swalwell, a California Democrat, tweeted that Fanone approached Clyde at the Capitol and introduced himself as “someone who fought to defend the Capitol,” but Clyde refused to shake his outstretched hand.

And if you have problems believing Swalwell, here’s Republican Adam Kinzinger confirming the described incident:

Rep. Adam Kinzinger, an Illinois Republican, tweeted shortly after that he’d called Fanone and “confirmed” the story.

“Officer Fanone just ran into @Rep_Clyde at Capitol (he’s the “Jan 6 was a typical tour” guy). Fanone introduced himself as ‘someone who fought to defend the Capitol’ and put out his hand,” Swalwell tweeted. “Clyde refused to shake it. To honor Trump, @housegop will dishonor the police.”

“I just called Officer Fanone and confirmed this story. This is really incredible,” Kinzinger tweeted. “Also relayed an interaction he had with another members [sic] Chief of Staff that was really incredibly bad and disrespectful.”

You may recall that Rep. Clyde repeatedly downplayed the events of Jan. 6 and claimed during a hearing last month that many of the rioters behaved like they were on a “normal tourist visit.” The congressman also insisted there was “no insurrection,” and instead “an undisciplined mob” that included “some rioters” and some who committed vandalism. Clyde’s attempt to minimize the Capitol riot is particularly notable because he was photographed helping barricade the doors to the House floor from inside the chamber as pro-Trump rioters attempted to smash them down.

What an imbecile. But worse, what a big, fat hypocrite:

This week is National Police Week. Having worked with law-enforcement for over 30 years, I know the risks our brave LEO’s undergo on a daily basis. Thank you to the men and women of the Georgia police forces and across our nation for keeping us safe every day! #BackTheBlue pic.twitter.com/WpZlhL2PCQ

— Congressman Clyde Press Office (@Rep_Clyde) May 11, 2021

According to Fanone, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has also refused to meet with him.

UPDATE: Because a commenter noted that he wouldn’t shake hands with a stranger who came up to him and offered his hand, which is not unreasonable, I am adding a fuller description of the incident per Fanone:

Michaeal Fanone…told CNN’s Don Lemon that he went to the Capitol in an attempt to set up meetings with Clyde and the 20 other Republican lawmakers who on Tuesday voted against legislation to award Congressional Gold Medals to officers who responded to the Jan. 6 rioting.

“I really just went there to engage with them, talk to them about my experience, show them body-worn camera footage from that day, if they were interested,” Fanone said. “I didn’t go there with the thoughts that I was going to change a bunch of hearts and minds, but I wanted to better educate them as to what officers’ experiences were that day.”

Fanone, who was repeatedly hit with a stun gun and beaten during the riot, said that while he was not able to set up meetings with any of the lawmakers, he ran into Clyde outside an elevator.

“I was very cordial. I extended my hand to shake his hand,” Fanone recounted. “He just stared at me. I asked if he was going to shake my hand, and he told me that he didn’t who know I was.”

“So I introduced myself, I said that I was Officer Michael Fanone, that I was a D.C. Metropolitan Police officer who fought on Jan. 6 to defend the Capitol and, as a result, I suffered a traumatic brain injury as well as a heart attack after having been tased numerous times at the base of my skull, as well as being severely beaten,” the officer said.

“At that point, the congressman turned away from me,” Fanone alleged before saying that once the elevator doors opened, Clyde “ran as quickly as he could, like a coward.”

–Dana

Biden and Putin are meeting today. No matter how many note cards Biden needs, he’s unlikely to favor Putin’s word over our intelligence services, or spill state secrets to impress Biden. Meanwhile, “conservatives” are following Trump’s lead from the other day in seeming to be on Putin’s side, praising Putin’s toughness as they denigrate Biden:

The gop fan club for Putin is something. pic.twitter.com/BANw2tp3kr

— Nana Malcontent walks with Lincoln 🇺🇸 (@beccaturmo) June 16, 2021

The guy who shot Bin Laden says:

I hope Putin brought an appetite. He’s about to eat our lunch.

— Robert J. O'Neill (@mchooyah) June 16, 2021

I liked him better when he was shooting our enemies instead of shilling for them. I felt like our lunch money got stolen in Helsinki in 2018, myself.

Meanwhile, Putin spent some time recently pretending that our response to the Capitol riot shows we’re worse than he is about oppressing dissidents, and Useful Idiot Tucker Carlson is on board to repeat the propaganda:

Tucker Carlson Says Vladimir Putin’s Posing ‘Fair Questions’ About Ashli Babbitt Shooting https://t.co/M7QjoCvjJH

— Allahpundit (@allahpundit) June 16, 2021

Objectively pro-Putin. What else needs to be said?

P.S. To update my Chip Roy post, he showed up on the list of people who voted against recognizing the Capitol police for bravery. As someone on Twitter said: he is who you thought he was.

[guest post by JVW]

So I guess changing Presidents isn’t really accomplishing the goal of advancing American prestige overseas at G-7 summits. Whereas the previous guy was noted for his boorishness on the world’s stage, the new guy is setting tongues wagging with his befuddlement [links in quoted material appear in the original source]:

President Biden embarrassed himself at the G-7 summit when he tried to correct British Prime Minister Boris Johnson for not introducing “the president of South Africa” — even though Johnson already did so by name.

The blooper — one of several Biden made amid the series of meetings with world leaders — prompted laughter at his expense at the start of a roundtable discussion in Cornwall, England.

This is the sort of news that is being embargoed by the major news outlets who are fully vested in leaving us with the impression that the guy they helped drag across the finish line this past fall is competent and in control. Yet then we get moments such as this:

Biden wore dark sunglasses that obscured his eyes in an audience at Windsor Castle on Sunday with Queen Elizabeth II regarding future meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Royal protocol dictates that one must remove sunglasses during a meeting with the queen, according to a former royal butler.

“We had a great talk. She wanted to know what the two leaders that I … the one I’m about to meet with, Mr. Putin, and she wanted to know about Xi Jinping, and we had a long talk, and she was very generous,” Biden said after the meeting.

This statement from the president may have broken another protocol.

“It has nonetheless been a rule that an audience with the queen is strictly private, and to reveal its contents is a breach of trust,” said royal commentator Richard Fitzwilliams.

To the degree that Elizabeth II Regina “asked” President Charming about other world leaders it was almost certainly a courteous way to make small-talk, as she is known to be well-informed on current events with an excellent memory for the people she meets in her state duties. Mr. Biden tried to make up for his famous oafishness in breaching protocol by clumsily comparing the Queen to his mother, and as I joked over the weekend Her Majesty should have thought to return the favor by comparing the President to her late Uncle Edward.

Warming to his own incompetence, President Biden then had one of his news conferences in which he let loose his own personal brand of aging befuddlement:

Biden referred to Syria as Libya three times in the span of 90 seconds while speaking about potential areas where the United States can partner with Russia despite the countries’ fraught relationship.

“In Libya, we should be opening up the passes to be able to go through and provide … food assistance and economic ― I mean vital assistance ― to a population that’s in real trouble,” Biden said during his speech, which capped the three-day Group of Seven (G-7) summit in Cornwall, England.

“The rebuilding of Syria, of Libya ― you know, this is, they’re there and as long as they’re there without the ability to bring about some order in the region, you can’t do that very well without providing for the basic economic needs of people,” he added. “So I’m hopeful that we can find an accommodation that where we can save the lives of people in, for example, in Libya.”

National security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters later Sunday aboard Air Force One that Biden had mixed up the two Middle Eastern countries.

The President’s media courtiers inform us that behind the scenes Mr. Biden pressed for a tougher Western stance against China’s myriad of aggressions, and the G-7 crew did manage to issue a statement that criticized China’ human rights abuses and called for more transparency in the Wuhan Lab investigation, happily irking the tyrants in Beijing. I am pleased to hear that Secretary of State Anthony Blinken is apparently continuing to use his predecessor’s description of China’s behavior towards the Uyghurs as “genocide and ethnic cleansing”; I was fearful that the Biden Administration might water down the rhetoric for the sake of appeasement.

The President now moves on to a face-to-face meeting with Vladimir Putin, in which the Administration seems to already be dampening expectations. When Administration officials are (allegedly) telling reporters that a chief goal is for President Biden to have an error-free summit meeting, it’s very hard to keep up confidence in our Chief Executive, especially since the White House is working to ensure that Mr. Biden is not put into a position where his vigor and resolve might be unfavorably compared to that of his adversary, a tacit acknowledge that he lacks the stature of the man who served as President way back when Slow Joe was serving his third term in the United States Senate.

I don’t blame anybody for feeling a sense of relief that the last guy is no longer in the White House, but how can anybody feel secure that we are in the best of hands given the gaggle of mediocrities currently running the show? At least with the prior Administration we had a Vice-President who was competent, decent, and honest, three traits which none of us can ascribe to the current disaster who sits at Mr. Biden’s feeble right hand. We’re in for a rough ride over the next few years, especially if the President’s infirmities elevate the cipher that is Kamala Harris into an office for which she would undoubtedly be the worst-prepared occupant in our nation’s history. God bless America takes on a truly pointed meaning these days.

– JVW

Ed Whelan has the scoop here. The Supreme Court unanimously held “that a crack offender is eligible for a sentence reduction under the First Step Act only if convicted of a crack offense that triggered a mandatory minimum sentence.” Whelan says the unanimous opinion was a blow to the credibility of the Biden administration.

How, you might wonder, can the Supreme Court’s unanimous affirmance of a federal criminal sentence be a huge defeat for the Biden administration?

The answer is that the Biden administration, which inherited defense of this case from the Trump administration, informed the Court on March 15—the very date the United States’ brief on the merits was due—that it would not defend the judgment below and that it was confessing error in the case.

Both the confession of error and the timing of the confession were extraordinary. The Department of Justice routinely defends criminal convictions and sentences in cases on appeal that it is almost certain to lose, yet it refused to defend this case that informed observers recognized that it was very likely to win. The only plausible explanation is that the Biden administration confessed error in this case in order to pander to the Black Lives Matter crowd and other constituencies in the Democratic Party.

Prosecutors in DoJ played defense attorney for political reasons, to pander to black voters. But the law was decidedly not on their side, as a unanimous court held.

This is a disgusting abdication of the rule of law. When an administration subverts justice, it is supposed to be on behalf of the president’s personal friends, not Black Lives Matter.

[guest post by Dana]

I don’t know. On one hand, good for her acknowledging she was wrong, and offering an apology. But on the other hand, the woman is 47 years old! She’s just now learning what an incomparable horror the Holocaust was?? At the very least, it would seem that this is a rather serious indictment on Georgia’s public schools:

Last month, QAnon believer and freshman GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene appeared on a conservative podcast, where she compared the COVID-19 safety protocols put in place by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi—members must continue to wear masks on the chamber floor—to the treatment of Jews in Nazi Germany during the Holocaust. On Monday, Greene asked for forgiveness during a press conference she held after a visit to the Holocaust Museum, and began by reminding the assembled reporters that she is “very much a normal person.” “I think it’s important for me to always be transparent and honest,” Greene said, adding that her late father “taught me some great things.”

“And one of the best lessons that my father always taught me was when you make a mistake, you should own it,” Greene continued. “And I have made a mistake and it’s really bothered me for a couple of weeks now. So I definitely want to own it. This afternoon, I visited the Holocaust Museum. The Holocaust is—there’s nothing comparable. It happened, you know, over 6 million Jewish people were murdered. More than that, there were not just Jewish people, Black people, Christians, children, people that the Nazis didn’t believe were good enough, perfect enough. The horrors of the Holocaust are something that some people don’t even believe happened, that some people deny, but there is no comparison to the Holocaust. There are words that I have said, remarks that I’ve made, that I know are offensive. And for that I want to apologize.”

Marjorie Taylor Greene: “I have made a mistake… this afternoon I visited the Holocaust Museum. The Holocaust is- there’s nothing comparable to it.” pic.twitter.com/skrF6YyC3u

— Andrew Solender (@AndrewSolender) June 14, 2021

Here’s the thing: I have trouble understanding how a U.S. Representative who graduated from a state university never fully comprehended the scope and impact of the Holocaust until age 47.

Nonetheless, the timing of MTG’s statement is coincidental given that she is facing a censure resolution. She and Rep. Omar, that is. The latter coincidentally issued her own “clarification” for her anti-Semitic comments last week:

Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar will be the target of dueling resolutions expected to be filed this week admonishing them for remarks that critics said were antisemitic or inappropriate.

Rep. Brad Schneider, D-Ill., is expected to unveil a resolution Wednesday that would censure Greene, of Georgia, for remarks last month comparing House mask rules to the Holocaust.

…

Separately, Schneider led a group of House Democrats last week who publicly criticized fellow Democrat Omar, of Minnesota, accusing her of giving “cover” to terrorists and suggesting her remarks reflect a “deep-seated prejudice.”

Omar later clarified her comments in which she appeared to equate the U.S. and Israel with Hamas and the Taliban. Schneider said afterward that he was satisfied with her response.

The clarification by Omar, however, didn’t satisfy Republicans, who have frequently sought to cast her as indicative of a deeper antisemitic sentiment in the Democratic Party.

Rep. Jim Banks, R-Ind., is leading an effort to craft resolution to censure Omar. It will also censure other members of the so-called squad, Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., and Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., for “defending terrorist organizations” and blames the trio for recent antisemitic attacks in the U.S., according to a Banks spokesman…

Omar, Ocasio-Cortez and Tlaib, a Palestinian American, have all made statements criticizing the Israeli government and U.S. support, which have been met with criticism. In 2019, the House voted to condemn antisemitism in response to statements made by Omar, but the resolution did not name her…

Your elected officials at work.

–Dana

In January, Chip Roy of Texas claimed that he believed Trump had committed impeachable offenses, but rationalized a vote against impeachment by blaming Nancy Pelosi for drafting the articles in a way that targeted Trump’s speech rather than his actual offenses:

Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, said on the House floor that Trump’s conduct in pressuring the vice president to overturn the election impeachable, but that he opposes the article of impeachment.

“The president of the United States deserves universal condemnation for what was clearly, in my opinion, impeachable conduct, pressuring the vice president to violate his oath to the Constitution,” Roy said.

He said he is against the impeachment measure because it makes an issue of political speech.

This always seemed to me like a politically convenient excuse, from someone who is ambitious and didn’t want to cross his constituents, who would view any vote to impeach as tantamount to treason. When Chip Roy was one of the first out of the gate to condemn Liz Cheney, my opinion was confirmed. Her opinions were hardly out of bounds, if you actually believed that Trump committed impeachable offenses, and ought to have been impeached if only the Democrats had written the articles correctly.

Today John McCormack publishes a piece that makes it clear to me that I was right all along. Oh, how I love to have my confirmation biases gratified!

But why did Roy, who said in January that Trump had clearly committed an impeachable act, think it was so offensive for Cheney to say Trump shouldn’t have a role in the party?

“That an action was condemnable — that an action was impeachable — doesn’t mean necessarily it should be impeached,” Roy said.

“It’s kind of like there are sins in the Bible for which you might leave a spouse — you know, committing adultery, for example. That doesn’t mean that the marriage should fall apart,” he added. “What I think we’ve got to do is work with the president and work with our entire coalition of Republicans behind four years of a really strong agenda and move forward.”

Rationalization City USA, population this guy.

It’s lovely that Roy was willing to condemn Trump for a brief period of time. But it’s not good enough.

Ironically, on the flip side of the coin, his cravenness on impeachment and Cheney may not have been good enough for Trump, who demands unquestioned loyalty at all times in all situations. Just ask Mike Pence. McCormack says someone may be exploiting Roy’s lack of full obsequiousness to primary him:

But is there any reason to believe Trump’s prediction of a Roy primary loss (which reads more like a threat) will come true? Matt McCall, who lost to Roy 47.3 percent to 52.7 percent in the 2018 GOP primary runoff, certainly hopes so.

“I have asked Trump for his endorsement to run against Chip Roy. If Trump endorses, I will run, and we will kick Chip Roy’s ass,” McCall told National Review in a phone interview. “I’ve approached [Trump’s] team. Steve Bannon, I think, is working on that for us.”

Ultimately, McCormack seems to think Roy will be OK. But wow, it would be a shame if his willingness to go in the tank for Trump, but only part of the way, was not enough for the Vindictive Retired Guy in Chief.

Yesterday, there was a mass shooting in Austin, Texas, on Sixth Street, probably the city’s most well-known entertainment district. Up to 14 people were injured. In the hours after the shooting, the local paper, the Austin American-Statesman, declined to pass along a description of the suspect, citing the need to avoid “perpetuating stereotypes”:

Police have only released a vague description of the suspected shooter as of Saturday morning. The Austin American-Statesman is not including the description as it is too vague at this time to be useful in identifying the shooter and such publication could be harmful in perpetuating stereotypes and potentially put innocent individuals at risk. If more detailed information is released, we will update our reporting.

Since the current (incorrect) stereotype of mass shooters is that they are white males, I’m sure that’s the stereotype they were trying to avoid perpetuating, right? Lol j/k! As Andy Ngo notes, the police description of the suspect included the detail that the suspected shooter was black:

Liberal newspaper Austin @statesman says it refuses to print the description of the mass shooting suspect for ideological reasons. The at-large suspect is described by police as a slim black male with dreadlocks who wore a black shirt. pic.twitter.com/7Ec3GSdQCP

— Andy Ngô (@MrAndyNgo) June 12, 2021

Anybody reading the “we don’t want to perpetuate stereotypes” language already knew what race the lefty editors were trying to protect. They might as well have added the other useful details that were available, like the suspect’s build, hair, and clothing.

But wait! Patterico, why do you assume that the Austin American-Statesman would take this position only with respect to a black suspect? Can you prove that they would have published a description of the shooter if he had been white? Huh? Well, can you?

Well, as it happens, I can go one better. Back in 2018, the very same Austin American-Statesman was writing about a bomber on the loose, whose package bombs had killed two people and injured a third. They didn’t have any sort of description of the suspect at all, much less one that included details like race, build, hair color, and clothing. But that didn’t stop them from speculating that it was probably one of those damned white males:

If the package bombs that have killed two Austin residents and seriously injured a third in recent weeks turn out to be the work of a single person, he or she will join a tiny but grim fraternity — serial killers whose weapon of choice was an explosive device.

The group is so small that police and psychologists’ efforts to draw meaningful conclusions about its members has met with uneven success. . . .

. . . .

Still, researchers have identified some broad characteristics that police turn to in trying to identify deadly bombers. All have been white men. While they have varied educational attainment, they were of above-average intelligence and mechanically inclined.

Almost always, they were furious.

To sum up, here is how the Austin-American-Statesman comes down on stereotyping by race:

Scenario A: a suspect description is available, and contains information about race, build, hair style, and clothing: namely, a “slim black male with dreadlocks who wore a black shirt.” Can’t publish that! That would perpetuate stereotypes!

Scenario B: we have no suspect description whatsoever. Anything we said would be pure speculation. But, you know who usually does this kind of crime, don’t you? Why, we all know the stereotype, and we will cheerfully tell you what that stereotype is: angry white males!

In short: we will gleefully stereotype by race, as long as the race we are stereotyping is whites.

If this kind of hypocrisy surprises you, please raise your hand.

I see no hands.