November 23, 2021

Another Case Where Everything You've Read Is Wrong: Ahmaud Arbery

November 23, 2021/ Francis Menton

Like many people, I followed the Kyle Rittenhouse trial out of Kenosha, Wisconsin fairly closely over the past several weeks. As discussed in Jane’s post on Sunday, that trial proved to be a riveting instance of a totally false and racialized progressive narrative (“white supremacist vigilante crossed state lines with illegal firearm to go on shooting spree against innocent mostly peaceful BLM protesters”) getting completely contradicted by incontestable facts (mostly videos) introduced in evidence at the trial.
But following the Rittenhouse trial has inherently meant little time left to follow another high-profile trial unfolding simultaneously in Brunswick, Georgia — the trial of Gregory and Travis McMichael and Roddy Bryan for the alleged murder of Ahmaud Arbery in February 2020.
Having not devoted much attention to the Arbery matter before now, my brain was of course, as is inevitable, heavily infected with the official progressive narrative of the situation.

November 21, 2021

Can A Progressive Be Convinced By Facts?

November 21, 2021/ Jane Menton

The Kyle Rittenhouse trial has given us an unusual opportunity to contrast uncontestable facts as shown on many video recordings with an endlessly repeated media narrative that seems to exist in an alternate reality.
To my amazement, even after two full weeks of livestreamed trial, most notably featuring videos taken on the night at issue and a witness testifying that he had pointed a gun in Rittenhouse’s face, many on the left cling to the prior narrative of the case.
They seem to feel as though that narrative contains a greater truth about our justice system and racism in this country and therefore cannot be disputed by facts.

November 19, 2021

November 19, 2021/ Francis Menton

As noted in my post this past Sunday, no amount of fake happy talk in the so-called “Glasgow Climate Pact” can obscure the obvious fact that nobody agreed to anything.
To read the text of the “pact,” everybody claims to think that this whole “decarbonization” thing to “save the planet” is real. We’re all going to do something really, really significant, but it will be next year, or maybe the year after that.
And meanwhile, nobody has made any remotely serious effort to cost this thing out. Are we talking about a ten percent increase in the cost of energy for this decarbonization project, or will it be a doubling, or maybe a tripling — or maybe even a multiplication by ten?
With tens of trillions of dollars at stake in the world economy, let alone the majority of humanity at risk of energy poverty, you would think that we would be far down the road toward detailed engineering studies of what the decarbonized energy world will look like and exactly how much it will cost. But it is exactly the opposite.

November 16, 2021

November 16, 2021/ Francis Menton

By now you must have noticed how many of the big news stories that have political significance to the left, and are hyped for months or years (or even decades) on end throughout the mainstream media, turn out to be false.
Donald Trump colluded with the Russians to hack and steal the 2016 election. Kyle Rittenhouse is a white supremacist vigilante who went to Kenosha to make trouble. There is no such thing as Critical Race Theory taught in K-12 schools. “Climate change” is an existential crisis that can be easily solved at little cost by building wind turbines and solar panels. Saturated fat in your diet is bad for you. Feel free to add your own ten or a hundred examples to this list.
One that I had paid little attention to up to now was the narrative about the evils of plastics — that they cause terrible pollution problems, that they have accumulated in vast amounts in the oceans, that they kill sea creatures by the millions, that they accumulate forever and never degrade, and so forth.
While I haven’t been paying attention, this narrative, like so many others, has swept to universal acceptance in progressive precincts, which of course includes my own New York City.
So clearly, there must be something really horrible about these plastic bags and straws, and probably everything else made of plastic.

November 14, 2021

November 14, 2021/ Francis Menton

If you have been following the news at all for the past several weeks, you know that the latest gigantic UN “climate” conference, going by the name COP (Conference of Parties) 26, has been taking place in Glasgow, Scotland. Mercifully, it ended yesterday, Saturday, November 13. All of those hundreds of private jets have now flown home.
Every time one of these UN confabs takes place, you have to hold your breath fearing that some tremendously damaging result will emerge. But, reviewing the final outcome of this latest conference, my comment is that we climate realists have gotten about the best result we could have hoped for. If you read some mainstream news sources, you may well get exactly the opposite impression. So let me give my reasoning.
At this point, there are basically two paths that the world might take in the movement toward so-called “decarbonization” of the energy system. . . .

November 12, 2021

November 12, 2021/ Francis Menton

Over the years, mostly in connection with the Trump/Russia collusion hoax, I have had many occasions to cover what I have considered to be wrongful — indeed clearly criminal — conduct by the FBI. To give just a few examples, there was the 2016 application for a FISA warrant against Carter Page (three times renewed) based on knowingly false information; the 2017 set-up of Michael Flynn; and then-Director Comey’s blatant lies to President Trump in early 2017 about what the FBI was up to. Or go to this link for a long litany of wrongful FBI and DOJ conduct.
So with all that has now come out about the FBI’s sordid and criminal role in the Trump/Russia matter, do you think that the people at the Bureau would be at least a little chastened? Don’t be ridiculous. Indeed, they have every reason to have learned the opposite lesson.
And so now, over the past few days, we learn about another round of blatant and egregious FBI misconduct. This time the target is not an opposing political campaign, but it is nevertheless a clear political enemy, namely Project Veritas and its head, James O’Keefe.