Media
July 10, 2020 — Scott Johnson
Professor Paul Cassell is Ronald N. Boyce Presidential Professor of Criminal Law and University Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of Utah’s S.J. Quinney College of Law. In other words, a prominent scholar. At the Volokh Conspiracy he modestly poses the question “Are Minneapolis Crime Increases Evidence of a ‘Ferguson Effect’?” Professor Cassell isn’t the first observer to pose the question. Heather Mac Donald has already argued that Minneapolis
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July 9, 2020 — Scott Johnson
Thanks to the death of George Floyd in police custody on May 25, Minneapolis has served as ground zero in the cultural revolution. All four officers on the scene have been terminated from the force and charged in Floyd’s death. Former Nation of Islam hustler and current Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison has been assigned the lead in the prosecution of the officers. Yesterday one of the charged officers —
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July 9, 2020 — Scott Johnson
The Minnesota Department of Health has cut back its press briefings to a Monday-Wednesday-Friday schedule. Although press attendance on the conference calls appears to be much reduced, with some reporters popping up a second time for questions, the department continues to exclude me on the ground that they need to confine the briefing, so they say, to a chosen few members of large media organizations. I have not made the
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July 7, 2020 — Scott Johnson
State senator and medical doctor Scott Jensen joined Jon Justice and Drew Lee a little past the midway point of the second hour of their show this morning. I have embedded the second hour in podcast form below; it runs about 38 minutes. Dr. Jensen discusses the complaints made against him to the Minnesota Board of Medical Practice for his departure from the party line on the epidemic. Laying down
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July 7, 2020 — Scott Johnson
The Washington Free Beacon has put together the SUPERcuts video below illustrating the Orwellian revision of Mount Rushmore. Past statements pretending to admiration are going down the memory hole. Oh, Big Brother Sibster. And don’t forget: IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH. If we didn’t understand before, we should be getting a handle on the importance of this axiom right about now now. Perhaps what we have here is progress of a kind.
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July 7, 2020 — Scott Johnson
KARE 11 reports that Protesters march from [the Mall of America] to George Floyd’s memorial.” I should think the news is that “Black Panthers of Minneapolis” were marching around town and blocking traffic while sporting what look to be AR-15s, but the reporter seems more interested in the angry comments of Tyrone Carter. Who are “Black Panthers of Minneapolis”? And were those things loaded? Good luck trying to find any
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July 7, 2020 — Scott Johnson
In the data posted yesterday the authorities attributed three new deaths to COVID-19, including one resident of a long-term care facility. LTC deaths make up 78.4 percent of the total. Hospitalizations continue to decline. The median age of decedents — reported, most recently, in the July 2 weekly report — has now reached 83.6. What is happening here? Kevin Roche comments: One thing is clear, deaths and hospitalizations have fallen
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July 6, 2020 — Scott Johnson
Dr. Scott Jensen is a state senator who is part of the narrow GOP majority in that body trying to protect us from Governor Walz’s endless exercise of emergency powers. As a family physician, he has been a knowledgable opponent of the party line relentlessly shoved down our throats by the Walz administration with the assistance of the Minnesota media. Indeed, he has made himself a vocal opponent. Now Senator
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July 6, 2020 — Scott Johnson
On May 18 the state of Minnesota purchased the Bix Produce Co.’s former cold storage facility just north of downtown St. Paul for an emergency morgue, bracing for a peak in COVID-19 deaths predicted by the state’s super duper Minnesota Model 3.0 as updated the previous week. The state paid $5.5 million for the property. Operating costs and improvements to ready the building for its new purpose will bring the
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July 6, 2020 — Scott Johnson
Today’s Wall Street Journal lead editorial picks up where we left off over the weekend in our reviews of President Trump’s July 3 speech at Mount Rushmore. The Journal editorial begins with the uniform voice of the Democrat media blob condemning the speech in whacked-out headlines and dishonest stories: At Mt. Rushmore, Trump uses Fourth of July celebration to stoke a culture war —Los Angeles Times Trump Uses Mount Rushmore
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July 3, 2020 — Scott Johnson
The editors of City Journal asked me for an account of what happened in Minneapolis. They have just posted it as “Minnesota madness.” Please check it out. This is where I started, although the column as edited covers a little more ground in a little less space. George Floyd died in the custody of four Minneapolis police officers on May 25. The rest of the week we had a terroristic
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July 2, 2020 — Scott Johnson
Some mischievous benefactor of humanity has purchased a full-page ad in today’s New York Times to publish Roger Kimball’s June 22 American Greatness column “Canceling Yale.” The ad with Roger’s column appears in today’s Times under the headline Rename Yale Now. I have posted a screenshot of the text below. I’m sorry it’s not more readable. I just want you to get some idea of the nature of the thing.
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July 2, 2020 — Scott Johnson
I posted the video of Tucker Carlson’s segment with St. Louis homeowner Mark McCloskey in “Brit Hume: The BLM fraud.” It was a fantastically informative segment. CNN’s Chris “Fredo” Cuomo brought up the stupid rear in his segment with Mr. McCloskey yesterday (below). McCloskey capably acquitted himself with Cuomo, who proved himself even more obtuse than his reputation.
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July 2, 2020 — Scott Johnson
In his NR column “Dementia politics” Victor Davis Hanson sounds like the boy declaring the emperor wears no clothes: Joe Biden is tragically suffering a mental eclipse and sliding away at a geometric rate. Understandably, his handlers have kept him out of sight. He stays off the campaign trail on the pretext of the virus and his age-related susceptibility to COVID-19 morbidity. I say “pretext” without apology. Quarantine should not
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July 2, 2020 — Scott Johnson
The authorities attributed a grand total of four new deaths to COVID-19 yesterday. All four deaths occurred among residents of long-terms care facilities and all four decedents were in their 70’s, 80’s, or 90’s. The total of all deaths attributed to the epidemic to date is 1,445. Long-term care decedents make up 1,135 of the total. Hospitalizations attributed to the epidemic are low, low, low. Yet we remain under the
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July 1, 2020 — Scott Johnson
Tucker Carlson Tonight drew record ratings for FOX News in the quarter just concluded. Breaking the record previously held by Sean Hannity, Tucker had the best quarter ever for a cable news program. Variety covers the story here. Last night’s show suggested to me why this may be the case. Tucker had on Brit Hume for a blast of truth about the noxious Black Lives Matter crowd. BLM is a
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June 30, 2020 — Scott Johnson
Tucker Carlson beat the Star Tribune to the story of the three Minneapolis City Council members who want to ashcan the police but have retained private security to protect themselves at taxpayers’ expense. He invited me on his show to talk about it last night. Unfortunately for me, he covered it thoroughly in his introduction. I have taken the liberty of embedding the video below. As one thing led to
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