Don's Tuesday Column

             THE WAY I SEE IT   by Don Polson   Red Bluff Daily News   3/23/2021

         Believing impossible things all day

"Alice laughed: ‘There's no use trying,’ she said; ‘one can't believe impossible things.’ ‘I daresay you haven't had much practice,’ said the Queen. ‘When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.’” (Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll)

Phrases like “low hanging fruit,” or “target rich environment” apply; whether by breakfast or all day, simply read or watch the news media reporting and “analysis” for an overload of “impossible things.”

For instance, in “The January 6^th ‘Insurrection’ that Wasn’t” by Ron Wright (americanthinker.com, 3/14), we learn—over 2 months after the violent assault on the Capitol—that saying it was an “armed insurrection” is impossible on multiple fronts. Guns were neither used nor confiscated from any of the rioters or those simply milling about watching the events—it was, by definition, not an “armed” crowd.

Other weapons were present but not wielded against Capitol police in general; the only gunshot was fired by an unidentified security person at an unarmed Air Force veteran, Ashli Babbitt, who was shot while crawling through a previously broken window. She was likely breaking some law but threatening no officer. So, we have the same people who oppose police using lethal force against truly violent, often gun-wielding, Black criminals, now unconcerned with who shot Ms. Babbitt or why that person is not under media scrutiny.

Investigators have provided evidence of pre-planning—negating the charge that then-President Trump “incited” any of the violence—but no evidence that the participants were planning to “overthrow,” attack or intimidate any elected officials. Incarcerate anyone proven to have broken laws. Be aware, however, that many hundreds of violent, often armed, rioters from last year’s unrest—many of whom attempted to destroy police precincts and kill officers—were charged, with bail paid for by rich leftists and politicians like Kamala Harris and Democrat staffers, and routinely released to returned to riot. Charges were often dropped later.

To answer the question, “Who supports violence?” we can cite the American National Elections Studies that has, since 1948, polled voters both before and after elections. A pattern emerges from the answers of many thousands of interviewees, to the question, “How much do you feel it is justified for people to use violence to pursue their political goals in the country?”

While all political groups expressed high disapproval of violence, changes, from 2016 to 2020, are revealing. The four “Moderate” to “Very Conservative” groups all said (violence is) “Not at all” (justified) in equal or slightly higher percentages: from 86% to 96%. Even those “Somewhat liberal” expressed higher disapproval (from 86% to 88%).

Only “Liberal” and “Very Liberal” groups expressed less disapproval in 2020 than in 2016. “Liberal” disapproval of violence dropped from 88% to 82%. “Very liberal” disapproval of violence dropped from 86% to 66%; those on the farthest left had a marked increase of support for political violence. The most “Progressive” among us have become more supportive of violence in a political cause. That makes historical sense; no leftist movement to impose socialism or communism has ever done so without violence.

When His Fraudulency, Joe Biden repeatedly tripped on Air Force One’s stairway (sorry for his apparent impediments), mouthpiece Jen Psaki asked us to believe the impossible: that the wind caused the falling. Those gullible enough to accept that were also likely to have believed the plainly non-shaky walk by Trump, down a ramp at West Point, was that of a decrepit senior. His careful gate and body language mirrored the West Point Superintendent, Lt. Gen. Darryl A. Williams, who was plainly not assisting Trump. That little faux trot by Biden, upon entering any stage, showed no vigor; and Hillary Clinton’s stair-falls and her having to be lifted and carried into a van after loosing her balance simply standing—surely the Secret Service’s fault.

The Washington Post’s retraction of the December anonymously-sourced “verbatim” claim that Trump asked the Georgia SecState Raffensperger to “find the fraud” in the election—was a media/Democrat cluster-attack over something we Trump supporters found nigh impossible to believe. But, as Becket Adams explains at the Washington Examiner, “the Washington Post’s dud of a ‘bombshell’ isn’t even the most scandalous thing about this episode in media malfeasance.” (“The Washington Post’s fake Trump Quote is a lot worse than you think,” Matt Margolis, 3/15, pjmedia.com)

“The most scandalous thing, Adams argues, is that several different newsrooms claimed they independently ‘confirmed’ the original ‘scoop’ with anonymous sources of their own.” That’s just how the Dem/media cabal roll: in this case, a Georgia election staffer made up fake quotes supposedly from an actual phone call to Raffensperger; when the actual audio was found in his “trash” folder and played, it clearly proved Trump said no such thing. As usual, they run with “fake news,” while the truth gets short shrift.

A partial record of fake, phony journalism: Janet Cooke’s Pulitzer Prize was returned upon finding that “Jimmy’s World” was made-up, while other disgraced-by-phony-stories reporters include Jayson Blair, Stephen Glass, Sabrina Erdley, Jack Kelley. Dan Rather’s TANG (Texas Air National Guard) fake story on George Bush, anyone?

Look up “Mask Mandates Do Not Save Lives,” by Spike Hampson (americanthinker.com, 3/17); you’ll see that “The Ten Earliest States to Implement Mask Mandates” had a combined death rate (per 10,000) of 13.3; “The Ten States That Never Required Masks” had a death rate of 12.6 per 10,000. Kind of refutes what the haranguers, scolders and would-be despots have repeated ad nauseum. I don’t want to hear it one more time.

Also, read “Former FDA Chief Says Social Distancing Mandate ‘Wasn’t Based on Clear Science’” (by Jack Phillips, 3/21).