Their flagship publication, The Free Press’, failure to correct an error-filled defense of George Floyd’s killer demonstrates that they are just another partisan tribe
Hughes recently claiming that Biden definitely exhibited serious cognitive decline while Trump did not was the first crack in my initial esteem for him. This is another.
Let's take focus off Trump for a nanosecond (indeed, a Sisyphean task for far too many), given that he's not the president at this point in time. It's fascinating, the degree to which Biden supporters are nearly bereft of any critique of the sitting president all while leveling heaps 'o hate on the previous POTUS. Yaeesh. Okay, you castigate Hughes to your heart's desire. Have at it. That we are being led to believe that a fully functioning man operating with healthy brain activity sits in the oval office is far more significant an issue. After all, he (well, his handlers anyway) wields the power. Full stop. emoticon less and "UnLiked" by Barry Belvedere
I hear a lot more criticism of Biden by Democrats than I did of Trump by Republicans when he was president. That's debatable of course, but surely you can't think that the left worships Biden more than the right worships Trump. I don't recall reading many right wing articles about how Trump should step aside in 2020. I've read dozens of articles like that about Biden by Dems.
On a recent interview with a fellow from the Ayn Rand Institute, Hughes also praised the work of Richard Hanania, the “academic” known for his overt racist tweets and later exposed as promoting eugenics under the pseudonym Richard Hoste.
Apparently, if you’re one of 3 or 4 popular anti-woke, anti-blm black commentators, predominantly white heterodox / libertarian organizations don’t really care if you actually have any expertise in the subject you’re discussing or have done even the modicum of research needed not to embarrass yourself.
They’re willing to overlook those things as long as you have the right skin color to claim that their racist sounding views can’t possibly be racist. I think there’s a term for this but it alludes me right now ;)
I've read Hanania and he's probably more reasonable than Hughes. Hanania will do things like point out that the liberal media is more honest than conservative media. He has disavowed many of his previous racist positions also. He's one of the few anti-woke writers I can stand reading.
Cognitive decline and being a shameless megalomaniac are two different things. But unlike Berrny and company, Coleman Hughes not having a partisan axe to whirl knows the difference. If neither were his disrespect-able parties nominee, it is safe to say you Jason, Benrny, Coleman and me would rather have The Don driving the golf cart, than a man who wold wipe out on a bike with training wheels Not that your comment is substantive at all regarding the topic at hand…just as Berny is not man enough to tell you
Jeez, it’s like you missed thr entire point of the article. Hughes doesn’t derive a some uniquely special power to ascertain the truth by virtue of his claims to being a tribeless, non-partisan, iconoclast. It doesn’t bestow him with greater general credibility or expertise without regards to actual claims he’s making or his apparent inability to self reflect on Radley Balko’s criticisms. Elevating triablelessness like it’s a credential that makes his claims uniquely credible is exactly the problem.
On the "shoplifting in California" issue, I don't profess to know much about crime statistics (infinitely less than Mr. Balko does!). But I, like (I am guessing) most other ordinary shoppers in American cities, have noticed that in the last two or three years the big chain pharmacies have been locking up large categories of relatively low cost goods that were never locked up before (e.g. toothpaste, deodorants, shower gel etc.).
This is annoying and inconvenient, and also appears intuitively to support claims that shoplifting had greatly increased prior to the practice of locking up toothpaste, and similarly that any reduction in shoplifting since then has been achieved by increased inconvenience to the customers rather than through the criminal justice system. But that intuition may be mistaken: I would be greatly interested to learn how Mr. Balko (or some other actual expert on crime statistics) would explain the recent phenomenon of locking up toothpaste, if not the result of increased losses through theft.
Give a listen to the first 20 minutes of this If Books Could Kill podcast. They bring receipts: the numbers on retail crime were fabricated by a retail security trade organization, and retailers have been locking things up to reinforce the false narrative.
Thank you for this; but I didn't find it wholly persuasive, for a couple of reasons.
First, it keeps mixing up two different questions: the question of whether there are organized "shoplifting rings" with the question of whether there has been a rise in shoplifting in general - the bulk of the discussion is on the former question, but presumably "locking up goods" is driven primarily by the general rate of shoplifting. (For the record, I am entirely persuaded that the "organized shoplifting rings" panic is false!)
Second, when it does address the question of overall shoplifting rates, its statistics are entirely based on reports of shoplifting to police - which it acknowledges can't provide proper basis for any reliable statistics at all, since it is an artefact of what stores' policies are on reporting theft (as they say, "the police data is trash"). But stores themselves have records of missing inventory ("shrink"), which presumably gives a stronger sense of the losses - but the podcast doesn't discuss what those figures are, except to point out that they can't support the "organized shoplifting ring" narrative, which isn't relevant to the question of locking things up, for the reason I explained above.
None of this, therefore, does much to challenge the idea that there has been a rise in actual theft: again, purely on an intuitive basis, I can't see why major pharmacy chains are going to the expense and trouble of installing locks to the inconvenience of their customers if they did not consider that theft of certain categories of low-value goods was actually a serious problem.
Yes -- how often do we imagine businesses are causing major inconvenience to their customers, in an age of accelerating competition from highly convenient e-commerce alternatives, in order to "reinforce a narrative"?
It's all very Underpants Gnomes.
As for the "organized crime" angle, it's obviously not exactly Los Zetas doing this stuff, though I'm sure it often does involve plenty of teamwork by repeat offenders. Retail IS incentivized to make a bigger stink about the degree to which thieves are connected to "organized crime" and "terrorism" because those are words that get law enforcement moving and that it can use to justify allocating more resources to the problem. Not because it's a non-problem that retail is complaining about for the sake of "the narrative", but because it's an actual problem that retail actually wants to see solved and that is currently not being solved.
There’s also the fact that Michael Hobbes is pretty far from an honest broker. Take any of the charges of intellectual dishonesty leveled at Coleman Hughes and dual those up to 11, and simply reverse the politics, and you arrive at Michael Hobbes. This is the same person who’s claimed, for example, that the United States is the only country in which prison rape takes place.
The companies themselves have made statements supporting Balko’s claims as well.
“In a January earnings call, Walgreens’ CEO told investors that “maybe we cried too much” when reporting rising shoplifting the previous year.”
One thing to understand about shrink statistics is that it’s not *just* theft, and companies pointedly stopped reporting theft separately from other shrink in 2019-2020 (I believe walmart, know for a fact the big box home improvement retailers did - was a supervisor at the time). Muddying the waters lets them attribute a greater portion of losses to theft since ultimately the data to draw that distinction doesn’t exist anymore.
Lets them hide shit like rising shrink from poorly trained employees and bad logistics teams damaging goods. A 500 dollar stolen combo kit now shows up the same as a 500 dollar trashed washing machine from some dumbass delivery ridealong who showed up high. Some dipshit sending a forklfit into a sprinkler system and ruining 10k of appliances shows up the same as 10k of grills and lawnmowers cut out of the outdoor displays over the season
Could’ve changed back though since then, but I would not be surprised if some of how these things show come from them intentionally muddying the theft vs employee fuck up shrink data a few years back
Thank you for this link: but again, it doesn't really answer the question. I take the point that shrink is not just theft, but the article, like the podcast Polyzelos linked to, is more interested in the question of "organized retail theft" than in quantifying shoplifting overall.
And it doesn't talk at all about why things are locked up: as I pointed out, the things that are now being locked up are not high value things like $500 washing machines or lawnmowers or grills, but typically things costing less than $10, like toothpaste or deodorant. It seems intrinsically implausible to me that those would be subject to large losses through poorly trained employees or bad logistics teams, and it also seems implausible that large companies would go out of their way to alienate their customers by pretending that the losses in those categories were the result of theft when they in fact aren't. I wonder if you know anything that actually talks about locking goods up but which does not explain it in terms of rising losses through theft?
It is also worth pointing out, as I mentioned in my first message, that if there IS a rising amount of theft which is causing things to be locked up, then any subsequent diminution in losses in goods in those categories might be attributed to the goods being locked up rather than a diminution of crime ...
Consider the vast expense imposed on everyone for tamper-proofing OTC medications triggered by a couple of intentional poisonings of Tylenol bottles 30 years ago. It's not hard to believe a small number of widely publicized crowd-lifts would lead to tamper proofing drugstore shelves. Not that I've the real data, but it's unclear that the retailers have that either.
Not a great analogy, for a couple of reasons. First, the initial move to introduce tamper-proof medications were taken in order to reassure consumers, because sales of Tylenol dropped massively in the wake of the murders. So Johnson & Johnson's initial decision to make Tylenol tamper-proof was a hard-nosed commercial choice based on what consumers were demanding. (You may feel that consumers were irrational to demand this in response to just a couple of cases, and I would probably agree, but that is a different matter.)
Second, the spread of tamper-proofing to other products was imposed on manufacturers by the FDA. That the FDA, like many other government agencies, is overcautious and imposes unnecessary costs on manufacturers and consumers alike is something I would entirely agree with. But it makes it a bad analogy to the "locking up drugs" situation, which is driven by retailers themselves, not imposed on them from outside.
"First, the initial move to introduce tamper-proof medications were taken in order to reassure consumers, because sales of Tylenol dropped massively in the wake of the murders. "
I don't see the difference. Popist said, in essence, that shelves are being encased to prevent loss of sales, and you replied that Tylenol bottles were changed to prevent loss of sales.
No: Popist said that the shelves were (perhaps) being encased on the basis of a handful of anecdotal cases of theft, and offered the change to tamper-proof medication on the basis of a couple of murders via Tylenol as an analogy.
But I pointed out that the murders through Tylenol led to a GENUINE massive loss of sales, which the company HAD to respond to via tamper-proof medication; so that doesn't offer any support to the idea that the encasing of shelving is the consequence of a handful of anecdotes.
One nit. While event led to massive loss of sales for tylenol, it had not spread to massive losses of other OTC drugs. In that sense, the industry wide response of tampering proofing everything is analogous.
Related: I wonder how much of retail lockups were initially by triggered by the runs on otc pseudoephedrine for the home synthesis of meth, and if those lockups were incrementally extended to other products once the precedent was set. (If true, pseudoephedrine was the gateway drug to more general retail lockups :))
One of the most consistent statistics about crime is that people are *really bad* at estimating crime rates or severity. The average person believes that crime is higher than it's ever been, and these beliefs have no relationship to actual crime rates. Large retail chains are owned by people, and they aren't necessarily smarter or more aware of crime rates than the average person.
Adding to the issues of distorted views is the National Retail Federation's report that presented an extremely distorted and inaccurate view of retail crime. The NRF's report grossly exaggerated the spread of organized retail crime, using bad data and poor analytic techniques. Some folks argued the bad data and reporting was motivated by political or industry concerns (e.g. Walgreens wanted to close stores and used claims about shoplifting as cover), but it's possible that data was grossly misinterpreted with little fact-checking or analysis.
Adding further is the spread of viral videos, which can nationalize issues that are local or regional. Large retailers in my area lock up some items but not others, and the patterns are not consistent across the same retailers. A chain drug store in a wealthy neighborhood has fewer locked items than the same kind of store in a less wealthy area. We also see a lot of media reporting about people in poor communities shoplifting when relatively wealthy people are more likely (or just as likely) to shoplift as poor people.
One possibility is that companies behave irrationally because they are run by people who are not perfectly rational. No one is. When a trusted source for data releases scary-but-false information to business owners, those business owners are no better at estimating crime data than anyone else, and some of that data confirms the business owners' prior beliefs rather than challenging them, it's not hard to imagine how a business might try and protect itself from something that does not exist (or an overreaction to a regional issue).
Intuitively, the logic of events seems pretty simple: 1. Big stores have long had rules against confronting shoplifters, not on "woke" grounds but a calculation that the liability risks outweighed the costs. Due to these policies, shoplifting is not that risky. 2. Most people did not know this. 3. Viral videos of brazen shoplifting publicized its ease and impunity. 4. People copied them. 5. The chain stores started locking up more stuff.
It would take a lot more statistical clarity than I've seen to convince me otherwise!
I don't think it's accurate to say that shoplifting didn't go up, it's just that they exaggerated the extent. Every crime went up, shoplifting is just one that businesses care more about. The data absolutely is vague, but that's mostly because businesses don't usually waste time reporting every theft when they typically lose more money on unsold fruit.
I guess it’s a differentiator in a market crowded with commentators, but the vacuousness (and sometimes intellectual dishonesty) of much of their thought makes me wish they hadn’t bothered.
Typical Radley, mischaracterizing what the Fifth Column actually said about the documentary. If you're going to be upset that the Fifth Column encourages people to engage with wide ranging stuff, you might as well just ignore it. That's kind of their MO.
That said, Hughes is neither interesting nor accurate.
It would be really great if Radley would issue a correction here.
The Fifth Column guys are not a monolith of "heterodox thinking", whatever the fuck that means.
I've been a listener since day one, and they often disagree on various issues.
But the key thing here for me is, what precisely does "amplify" mean in this piece? Does that mean that the Fifth Column podcast went out of their way to promote the documentary? Does that mean they blasted out links to it on their social media accounts? Or, is it a bullshit sleight of hand method for Radley to assert that TFC actually endorses the findings within the documentary?
At its best, this is lazy journalism. At it's worst, this is akin to taking a pot shot.
It's neither. If anything, it was complimentary. As I think my piece makes clear, it was only after people started sending me links to more credible outlets, like TFC and Loury, that I felt like it was worth addressing the claims made in the documentary. The piece pretty clearly distinguishes TFC from the more far-right sources that had been pushing the film for months.
As for "amplify," there's a reason I didn't use a term like "promote" or "endorse", as I did when discussing those other outlets.
That said, one or more TFC hosts did say the documentary had provided a service, said the film made them see things differently, or pushed a one or more of the documentary's claims -- including that MPD taught the move that Chauvin put on Floyd, that Chauvin's actions were "by the book," and that Chauvin would not have been convicted if he'd been prosecuted somewhere else. The very fact that some of my readers who had never heard of the documentary asked me if I had a response to TFC's discussion of it I think justifies the word "amplify."
FWIW, I also find this furious, multi-day reaction baffling. I wasn't "calling them out," or even criticizing them for endorsing those claims. Unlike Hughes, who claims to have extensively researched his column, I'm aware of TFC's format -- that it's a casual discussion. I suppose it was somewhat disappointing to hear them bite on some of the film's nonsense -- Kmele in particular, given the claim that he followed the trial closely -- but I understand that TFC episodes are lighthearted banter, not a well-researched debate.
I only mentioned the podcast at all to explain how the documentary appeared on my radar. There's always a risk that in critiquing a nutty project like that, you draw unnecessary attention to it. I was explaining why, despite that risk, I thought the film had garnered enough momentum to merit a thorough rebuttal.
These are your exact words, from the "Just Asking Questions" podcast, with Zach Weissmueller and Liz Wolfe:
"I know The Fifth Column podcast talked about it in slightly skeptical, but mostly in a sort of way of endorsing a lot of its claims, or at least giving credibility to them. And then Coleman, I think, really pushed it into the mainstream."
You can go back and listen to TFC's discussion about this. Episode 435, starting at the 15-minute mark, through the first hour or so.
That Moynihan quote gets at an interesting nuance that their group is eliding. A work in the “counterpoint” genre only does its job well when it conveys the heretofore underreported perspective in an intellectually defensible way. But of course the documentary we’re talking about is serially misleading and untrustworthy. The cop’s perspective is an absolutely valid perspective to factor into one’s overall web of information about this and other cases, but the assumption that *this film* is a respectable presentation of that perspective is completely unfounded. To present a bullshit-ass documentary as a valuable counterpoint is itself a huge red flag.
You're trying to get TFC in trouble for something they didn't do.
This is so transparent it's unbelievable.
What kind of "journalism" is this? Are you now the gatekeeper of what is okay to talk about, and what isn't?
Does everyone need to have the *correct* interpretation of everything for their views in general to be valid in your opinion, Berny?
I disagree forcefully with TFC's opinions on the TikTok bill. But I respect their opinions. Do I then go and say: "they're amplifying pro-TikTok views? Please.
Just listened to just throwing it out there…I mean your just making statements…I mean asking questions…and never thought a podcast…I mean 30 K word article with as many hyper links would be drawing any unnecessary critic, I mean attentions to it….Coleman Hughes acquitted himself quite well [and shoulda been Chauvins devil’s advocate] and garnered enough momentum to credit a thorough rebuttal. Not jus sayin Balko…..TRU!!! Can a brotha get a Witt ness!!! Ramblin man gotta run on…Peace through superior mental firepower. 🍺✌️
Imagine being such a frustrated reject that you're spamming us across multiple platforms because your favorite podcast was described as amplifying something that they in fact amplified. I mean, your request for a correction here and your request for an apology on X literally preceded your request for clarification about what "amplify" means—which is hilariously backwards. But I know why, though. You had pre-signaled your distaste for Radley when the piece first came out, saying something to the effect of, "Oh God, am I going to have to agree with Radley on something now?" We're supposed to treat the person with an a priori hatred of Radley as a careful arbiter here? Laughable. We stand behind Radley's piece in its entirety.
Yes, it's true I am biased against Radley Balko. I dont like the way he interacts with people. That doesn't mean that my criticism of the article is invalid. In fact, you've done it again here in your reply, by claiming that TFC did in fact "amplify" (whatever that means) the documentary. Have you listened to the podcast episode in question?
I did. I'm a TFC fan who listened to the podcast the week they released it. To Radley's point, the first I'd heard of TFOM was on TFC. That alone justifies the use of the word "amplify" (to make something louder).
There's nothing wrong with discussing the documentary, but I remember feeling at the time that the skepticism they displayed was mostly throat-clearing so they could make the point that TFOM was bringing an important perspective to the conversation. After reading Balko's series, I know they credulously repeated one major error - whether the hold Chauvin used on Floyd was part of MPD training - and, as far as I can tell, they refuse to engage with this fact. Instead, they're pushing a meta-conversation about the word "amplify." When Welch addresses the criticisms of their podcast toward the end of his post, he claims they never bought the "MRT narrative," but that's plainly untrue if you listen to the episode.
Again, this is coming from a disappointed fan. I'd hoped they would talk about the issues with Coleman's piece on the pod... maybe reflect on their own talk about the doc... but that didn't happen...
To the broader point, we wouldn't be reading the piece above if TFP had issued a correction. IMO, this article is warranted... because the back and forth over the last few months *has revealed something interesting about this loose community of center-right pundits.
Thank you for writing this. I watched "The Fall of Minneapolis" and was horrified by it. So add me to the list of people whose mind you have changed about it.
Jumping ship from the fifth column after how they all handled this topic. They have major blind spots. I appreciate the folks trying to hold people's feet to fire. Had little exchange with Matt Welch. Doubt he will respond.
Thanks. You captured exactly how I feel. I honestly think I'm being gas lighted here, especially on the cop-centric point. Matt claims that he meant that as a criticism. In fact, he meant it as a complement. He appreciated it. We got that portion of the podcast transcribed. I can share it with you if it'll be helpful. You'll need to send me your email, though.
Heterodoxy is a brand and creed just like any other, and it breeds its own groupthink - I believe in part because the left so often repels it and isolates it as much as possible, such that someone who adopts heterodoxy inevitably shifts ever-rightward.
It’s also a consequence of the collapse of newsrooms, though. At every organization we see people routinely speaking on issues where they have limited expertise.
Agreed there. Among other problems, claiming to be free speech absolutists, and in many cases, supporting censorship of porn (eg, Louise Perry and the neo-radfem ‘gender critical’ crowd) or of social media (which Jonathan Haidt wants strongly regulated for the proverbial good of the children). I give FIRE credit for being consistent ‘free-speech absolutists’, but too many of these folks invoke free speech selectively until it’s an issue that bothers *them*.
That said, I think the problem is tribalism all the way down. Anti-anti-woke is very much a tribe too and coming from just as much a place of motivated-skepticism as Bari Weiss and company. And unfortunately, I’d put The Unpopulist in that box, even if coming from a somewhat less dogmatic perspective than Michael Hobbes or the Media Matters crew.
I mean, I think there are ways to be principled and still be iffy on the margins. (Walk with me here). Pre-AI someone could be pro-free speech and anti-porn by arguing from a labor/sex-work position. And the social media thing can be more about platforms and age-of-access than about right of speech. Especially since algorithms severely warp the “town square”. A platform free of algorithmic suggestions and user profiling could be argued to be free speech; a platform that manipulates what you see is something else.
Also I don’t recall Louise Perry being huge on free speech? Haidt is big on free speech *culture*, especially in academia - which doesn’t necessarily mean purely free platform access for minors.
I watched the discussion on the Reason podcast with Balko and Hughes. Balko fails to understand the point made repeatedly by Hughes, that he is arguing not that Chauvin is innocent, but that the prosecution did not prove their case to the "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard.
A jury, weighing all the evidence, disagrees. The judge overseeing the case disagrees. An appellate court that heard this argument disagrees.
How anyone could have watched the horror of that murder and reached the conclusion that the jury was "mistaken" is simply delusional or deliberately spouting propaganda.
Yes, and had he been found not guilty by that jury, he would have been deemed "innocent", but he wasn't, so Hughes can say he's not saying Chauvin was innocent, but had the jury decided there was reasonable doubt as Hughes argues, he'd have been found not guilty. He's was found guilty--that's the way it works.
hw just made a point I want to agree with. Hughes seems to think that an argument posing an alternative scenario that challenges the prosecution's "is itself exculpatory." That is not how reasonable doubt works. The word "reasonable" has always been interpreted as "reasonable in the eyes of a jury of defendant's peers." In rare cases where an argument of doubt is overwhelmingly compelling to a judge and not a jury, the judge can set the jury verdict aside, and appeals can challenge various bases on which the jury reached its verdict if they violate due process. But the standard of what counts as "reasonable" is set by juries and judges, not by commentators.
Now, if Hughes wants to persuade his audience that the jury was wrong, using his own standards, he's free to do that. But he cannot legitimately argue that *his* doubt is exculpatory, or that the law was violated because the doubt he feels is justified was not deemed justified by the jury and judges.
Hughes repeatedly suggests that the way to evaluate whether the state has proved its case beyond a reasonable doubt is to ask whether "there is another reasonable explanation" for Floyd's death, but that's not even close to what the burden of proof means or what the jury was tasked with deciding.
I think your expose is worthwhile, but the details are so minor and semantic that I can't assume bad faith on the part of Hughes. The larger message of his piece was that there should have been reasonable doubt in the trial, and that normal legal circumstances didn't apply in the Chauvin trial. This seems potentially valid, given the information we have about the jury after the fact. Keep in mind: even police (with several years of total LE experience) who simply restrained bystanders went to prison for YEARS. We should absolutely be honest about the details of the trial but the weight of the dishonesty still rests 95% on the legacy media, which misreported this case (and other, politically-related incidents) incredibly dishonestly.
I don't know about Nocera, who was always a good business writer, but something serious has happened to Bari Weiss. She was an interesting voice at the NYT, and I can imagine that being driven out by the Slack Militia took an emotional toll, but she has wildly overcompensated. The web site, the "university" and her whole public posture has severely compromised her intellectual reputation. Sad.
It’s narrativizing something. As in “these opinions are doubled down on” because people are too anti woke that their opinions don’t come from an honest place. That’s just what is being said here. That’s what the fifth guys are upset about. In a very high concept way Radley and shikma are calling them liars.
See. They didn’t denounce it “enough”. Which is a weird fucking thing to say right? What is the proper level? Is this just the ribbon bit from sienfeld? Do the guys at the fifth just not want to wear the ribbon? That seems to be what’s upsetting people.
And that’s fucking weird to me. That their retraction (of what I have no idea I’m a frequent listener and I honestly have no idea what was controversial other than they mentioned it and said it was kind of crappy, but interesting from a media perspective). That’s it. That’s “amplification”. That’s to be apologized for? It’s so bizarre.
I find their unnecessary defense of themselves honest and pretty convincing. I find the cherry picking and mental gymnastics of the populist a tad disappointing.
Hughes recently claiming that Biden definitely exhibited serious cognitive decline while Trump did not was the first crack in my initial esteem for him. This is another.
Let's take focus off Trump for a nanosecond (indeed, a Sisyphean task for far too many), given that he's not the president at this point in time. It's fascinating, the degree to which Biden supporters are nearly bereft of any critique of the sitting president all while leveling heaps 'o hate on the previous POTUS. Yaeesh. Okay, you castigate Hughes to your heart's desire. Have at it. That we are being led to believe that a fully functioning man operating with healthy brain activity sits in the oval office is far more significant an issue. After all, he (well, his handlers anyway) wields the power. Full stop. emoticon less and "UnLiked" by Barry Belvedere
I'll be sure to tell Barry what you said about him!
Yeah, sure. Let's "take our focus" off an authoritarian running on a platform of ending democracy.
That's never had a bad outcome in the entirety of human history. Nosirreebob.
I hear a lot more criticism of Biden by Democrats than I did of Trump by Republicans when he was president. That's debatable of course, but surely you can't think that the left worships Biden more than the right worships Trump. I don't recall reading many right wing articles about how Trump should step aside in 2020. I've read dozens of articles like that about Biden by Dems.
On a recent interview with a fellow from the Ayn Rand Institute, Hughes also praised the work of Richard Hanania, the “academic” known for his overt racist tweets and later exposed as promoting eugenics under the pseudonym Richard Hoste.
Apparently, if you’re one of 3 or 4 popular anti-woke, anti-blm black commentators, predominantly white heterodox / libertarian organizations don’t really care if you actually have any expertise in the subject you’re discussing or have done even the modicum of research needed not to embarrass yourself.
They’re willing to overlook those things as long as you have the right skin color to claim that their racist sounding views can’t possibly be racist. I think there’s a term for this but it alludes me right now ;)
I've read Hanania and he's probably more reasonable than Hughes. Hanania will do things like point out that the liberal media is more honest than conservative media. He has disavowed many of his previous racist positions also. He's one of the few anti-woke writers I can stand reading.
Cognitive decline and being a shameless megalomaniac are two different things. But unlike Berrny and company, Coleman Hughes not having a partisan axe to whirl knows the difference. If neither were his disrespect-able parties nominee, it is safe to say you Jason, Benrny, Coleman and me would rather have The Don driving the golf cart, than a man who wold wipe out on a bike with training wheels Not that your comment is substantive at all regarding the topic at hand…just as Berny is not man enough to tell you
Jeez, it’s like you missed thr entire point of the article. Hughes doesn’t derive a some uniquely special power to ascertain the truth by virtue of his claims to being a tribeless, non-partisan, iconoclast. It doesn’t bestow him with greater general credibility or expertise without regards to actual claims he’s making or his apparent inability to self reflect on Radley Balko’s criticisms. Elevating triablelessness like it’s a credential that makes his claims uniquely credible is exactly the problem.
Thanks for your comment on my comments…I guess.
Not sure what you are talking a bout🤪 as me thinks you do not realize I was remarking to and of Jason’s inane reflection on Coleman🍺🤪
Me thinks you are right.
On the "shoplifting in California" issue, I don't profess to know much about crime statistics (infinitely less than Mr. Balko does!). But I, like (I am guessing) most other ordinary shoppers in American cities, have noticed that in the last two or three years the big chain pharmacies have been locking up large categories of relatively low cost goods that were never locked up before (e.g. toothpaste, deodorants, shower gel etc.).
This is annoying and inconvenient, and also appears intuitively to support claims that shoplifting had greatly increased prior to the practice of locking up toothpaste, and similarly that any reduction in shoplifting since then has been achieved by increased inconvenience to the customers rather than through the criminal justice system. But that intuition may be mistaken: I would be greatly interested to learn how Mr. Balko (or some other actual expert on crime statistics) would explain the recent phenomenon of locking up toothpaste, if not the result of increased losses through theft.
Give a listen to the first 20 minutes of this If Books Could Kill podcast. They bring receipts: the numbers on retail crime were fabricated by a retail security trade organization, and retailers have been locking things up to reinforce the false narrative.
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-organized-retail-crime-panic-teaser/id1651876897?i=1000632676408
If you prefer the transcript, it's here:
https://www.buzzsprout.com/2040953/13846837-the-organized-retail-crime-panic-teaser
Thank you for this; but I didn't find it wholly persuasive, for a couple of reasons.
First, it keeps mixing up two different questions: the question of whether there are organized "shoplifting rings" with the question of whether there has been a rise in shoplifting in general - the bulk of the discussion is on the former question, but presumably "locking up goods" is driven primarily by the general rate of shoplifting. (For the record, I am entirely persuaded that the "organized shoplifting rings" panic is false!)
Second, when it does address the question of overall shoplifting rates, its statistics are entirely based on reports of shoplifting to police - which it acknowledges can't provide proper basis for any reliable statistics at all, since it is an artefact of what stores' policies are on reporting theft (as they say, "the police data is trash"). But stores themselves have records of missing inventory ("shrink"), which presumably gives a stronger sense of the losses - but the podcast doesn't discuss what those figures are, except to point out that they can't support the "organized shoplifting ring" narrative, which isn't relevant to the question of locking things up, for the reason I explained above.
None of this, therefore, does much to challenge the idea that there has been a rise in actual theft: again, purely on an intuitive basis, I can't see why major pharmacy chains are going to the expense and trouble of installing locks to the inconvenience of their customers if they did not consider that theft of certain categories of low-value goods was actually a serious problem.
Yes -- how often do we imagine businesses are causing major inconvenience to their customers, in an age of accelerating competition from highly convenient e-commerce alternatives, in order to "reinforce a narrative"?
It's all very Underpants Gnomes.
As for the "organized crime" angle, it's obviously not exactly Los Zetas doing this stuff, though I'm sure it often does involve plenty of teamwork by repeat offenders. Retail IS incentivized to make a bigger stink about the degree to which thieves are connected to "organized crime" and "terrorism" because those are words that get law enforcement moving and that it can use to justify allocating more resources to the problem. Not because it's a non-problem that retail is complaining about for the sake of "the narrative", but because it's an actual problem that retail actually wants to see solved and that is currently not being solved.
There’s also the fact that Michael Hobbes is pretty far from an honest broker. Take any of the charges of intellectual dishonesty leveled at Coleman Hughes and dual those up to 11, and simply reverse the politics, and you arrive at Michael Hobbes. This is the same person who’s claimed, for example, that the United States is the only country in which prison rape takes place.
Can you point me to where Hobbes made this claim?
Ummm...sure they are. Ffs
https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/us-retail-lobbyists-retract-key-claim-organized-retail-crime-2023-12-06/
The companies themselves have made statements supporting Balko’s claims as well.
“In a January earnings call, Walgreens’ CEO told investors that “maybe we cried too much” when reporting rising shoplifting the previous year.”
One thing to understand about shrink statistics is that it’s not *just* theft, and companies pointedly stopped reporting theft separately from other shrink in 2019-2020 (I believe walmart, know for a fact the big box home improvement retailers did - was a supervisor at the time). Muddying the waters lets them attribute a greater portion of losses to theft since ultimately the data to draw that distinction doesn’t exist anymore.
Lets them hide shit like rising shrink from poorly trained employees and bad logistics teams damaging goods. A 500 dollar stolen combo kit now shows up the same as a 500 dollar trashed washing machine from some dumbass delivery ridealong who showed up high. Some dipshit sending a forklfit into a sprinkler system and ruining 10k of appliances shows up the same as 10k of grills and lawnmowers cut out of the outdoor displays over the season
Could’ve changed back though since then, but I would not be surprised if some of how these things show come from them intentionally muddying the theft vs employee fuck up shrink data a few years back
Thank you for this link: but again, it doesn't really answer the question. I take the point that shrink is not just theft, but the article, like the podcast Polyzelos linked to, is more interested in the question of "organized retail theft" than in quantifying shoplifting overall.
And it doesn't talk at all about why things are locked up: as I pointed out, the things that are now being locked up are not high value things like $500 washing machines or lawnmowers or grills, but typically things costing less than $10, like toothpaste or deodorant. It seems intrinsically implausible to me that those would be subject to large losses through poorly trained employees or bad logistics teams, and it also seems implausible that large companies would go out of their way to alienate their customers by pretending that the losses in those categories were the result of theft when they in fact aren't. I wonder if you know anything that actually talks about locking goods up but which does not explain it in terms of rising losses through theft?
It is also worth pointing out, as I mentioned in my first message, that if there IS a rising amount of theft which is causing things to be locked up, then any subsequent diminution in losses in goods in those categories might be attributed to the goods being locked up rather than a diminution of crime ...
Consider the vast expense imposed on everyone for tamper-proofing OTC medications triggered by a couple of intentional poisonings of Tylenol bottles 30 years ago. It's not hard to believe a small number of widely publicized crowd-lifts would lead to tamper proofing drugstore shelves. Not that I've the real data, but it's unclear that the retailers have that either.
Not a great analogy, for a couple of reasons. First, the initial move to introduce tamper-proof medications were taken in order to reassure consumers, because sales of Tylenol dropped massively in the wake of the murders. So Johnson & Johnson's initial decision to make Tylenol tamper-proof was a hard-nosed commercial choice based on what consumers were demanding. (You may feel that consumers were irrational to demand this in response to just a couple of cases, and I would probably agree, but that is a different matter.)
Second, the spread of tamper-proofing to other products was imposed on manufacturers by the FDA. That the FDA, like many other government agencies, is overcautious and imposes unnecessary costs on manufacturers and consumers alike is something I would entirely agree with. But it makes it a bad analogy to the "locking up drugs" situation, which is driven by retailers themselves, not imposed on them from outside.
"First, the initial move to introduce tamper-proof medications were taken in order to reassure consumers, because sales of Tylenol dropped massively in the wake of the murders. "
I don't see the difference. Popist said, in essence, that shelves are being encased to prevent loss of sales, and you replied that Tylenol bottles were changed to prevent loss of sales.
No: Popist said that the shelves were (perhaps) being encased on the basis of a handful of anecdotal cases of theft, and offered the change to tamper-proof medication on the basis of a couple of murders via Tylenol as an analogy.
But I pointed out that the murders through Tylenol led to a GENUINE massive loss of sales, which the company HAD to respond to via tamper-proof medication; so that doesn't offer any support to the idea that the encasing of shelving is the consequence of a handful of anecdotes.
One nit. While event led to massive loss of sales for tylenol, it had not spread to massive losses of other OTC drugs. In that sense, the industry wide response of tampering proofing everything is analogous.
But, as I said, that was not a spontaneous move by the drug industry, but was the result of regulations imposed by the FDA a couple of months after the murders (see https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1982/11/05/fda-issues-rules-requiring-tamper-resistant-drug-packaging/96fd5565-feb2-4173-bb90-042674290d82/). So that is not really analogous to retailers locking up goods without any outside regulations imposing it on them.
You make good points.
Related: I wonder how much of retail lockups were initially by triggered by the runs on otc pseudoephedrine for the home synthesis of meth, and if those lockups were incrementally extended to other products once the precedent was set. (If true, pseudoephedrine was the gateway drug to more general retail lockups :))
One of the most consistent statistics about crime is that people are *really bad* at estimating crime rates or severity. The average person believes that crime is higher than it's ever been, and these beliefs have no relationship to actual crime rates. Large retail chains are owned by people, and they aren't necessarily smarter or more aware of crime rates than the average person.
This news article cites data supporting the claim RE crime perception and actual crime, and it recognizes how there is a partisan factor as well https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/people-think-crime-rate-up-actually-down-rcna129585.
Adding to the issues of distorted views is the National Retail Federation's report that presented an extremely distorted and inaccurate view of retail crime. The NRF's report grossly exaggerated the spread of organized retail crime, using bad data and poor analytic techniques. Some folks argued the bad data and reporting was motivated by political or industry concerns (e.g. Walgreens wanted to close stores and used claims about shoplifting as cover), but it's possible that data was grossly misinterpreted with little fact-checking or analysis.
A summary of the NRF's retraction is here https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/08/business/organized-shoplifting-retail-crime-theft-retraction.html
Adding further is the spread of viral videos, which can nationalize issues that are local or regional. Large retailers in my area lock up some items but not others, and the patterns are not consistent across the same retailers. A chain drug store in a wealthy neighborhood has fewer locked items than the same kind of store in a less wealthy area. We also see a lot of media reporting about people in poor communities shoplifting when relatively wealthy people are more likely (or just as likely) to shoplift as poor people.
Source here: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/nov/04/wealthy-people-shoplift-rob-steal-why
One possibility is that companies behave irrationally because they are run by people who are not perfectly rational. No one is. When a trusted source for data releases scary-but-false information to business owners, those business owners are no better at estimating crime data than anyone else, and some of that data confirms the business owners' prior beliefs rather than challenging them, it's not hard to imagine how a business might try and protect itself from something that does not exist (or an overreaction to a regional issue).
Intuitively, the logic of events seems pretty simple: 1. Big stores have long had rules against confronting shoplifters, not on "woke" grounds but a calculation that the liability risks outweighed the costs. Due to these policies, shoplifting is not that risky. 2. Most people did not know this. 3. Viral videos of brazen shoplifting publicized its ease and impunity. 4. People copied them. 5. The chain stores started locking up more stuff.
It would take a lot more statistical clarity than I've seen to convince me otherwise!
I don't think it's accurate to say that shoplifting didn't go up, it's just that they exaggerated the extent. Every crime went up, shoplifting is just one that businesses care more about. The data absolutely is vague, but that's mostly because businesses don't usually waste time reporting every theft when they typically lose more money on unsold fruit.
Defining yourself by opposition to another group (rather than by what one believes/wants) is the opposite of independence.
I guess it’s a differentiator in a market crowded with commentators, but the vacuousness (and sometimes intellectual dishonesty) of much of their thought makes me wish they hadn’t bothered.
This piece is so good.
Actually, no
Typical Radley, mischaracterizing what the Fifth Column actually said about the documentary. If you're going to be upset that the Fifth Column encourages people to engage with wide ranging stuff, you might as well just ignore it. That's kind of their MO.
That said, Hughes is neither interesting nor accurate.
He says they amplified it. They discussed and criticized it.
Balko has done more to amplify the doc because he's talked about it even more.
"Heterodox" is the new "contrarian": reinforcing the rightwing status quo, while posing as a provocative thinker.
(I see Lee Jones making much the same point already)
Insofar as “contrarian” has always been a bullshit rhetorical device thrown around by Progressive authoritarians, sure.
I have no idea what you are saying here.
It would be really great if Radley would issue a correction here.
The Fifth Column guys are not a monolith of "heterodox thinking", whatever the fuck that means.
I've been a listener since day one, and they often disagree on various issues.
But the key thing here for me is, what precisely does "amplify" mean in this piece? Does that mean that the Fifth Column podcast went out of their way to promote the documentary? Does that mean they blasted out links to it on their social media accounts? Or, is it a bullshit sleight of hand method for Radley to assert that TFC actually endorses the findings within the documentary?
At its best, this is lazy journalism. At it's worst, this is akin to taking a pot shot.
Which is it, Radley?
A good response here, from Matt Welch:
https://substack.com/profile/4280296-matt-welch/note/c-51852575?utm_source=notes-share-action&r=aakyu
It's neither. If anything, it was complimentary. As I think my piece makes clear, it was only after people started sending me links to more credible outlets, like TFC and Loury, that I felt like it was worth addressing the claims made in the documentary. The piece pretty clearly distinguishes TFC from the more far-right sources that had been pushing the film for months.
As for "amplify," there's a reason I didn't use a term like "promote" or "endorse", as I did when discussing those other outlets.
That said, one or more TFC hosts did say the documentary had provided a service, said the film made them see things differently, or pushed a one or more of the documentary's claims -- including that MPD taught the move that Chauvin put on Floyd, that Chauvin's actions were "by the book," and that Chauvin would not have been convicted if he'd been prosecuted somewhere else. The very fact that some of my readers who had never heard of the documentary asked me if I had a response to TFC's discussion of it I think justifies the word "amplify."
FWIW, I also find this furious, multi-day reaction baffling. I wasn't "calling them out," or even criticizing them for endorsing those claims. Unlike Hughes, who claims to have extensively researched his column, I'm aware of TFC's format -- that it's a casual discussion. I suppose it was somewhat disappointing to hear them bite on some of the film's nonsense -- Kmele in particular, given the claim that he followed the trial closely -- but I understand that TFC episodes are lighthearted banter, not a well-researched debate.
I only mentioned the podcast at all to explain how the documentary appeared on my radar. There's always a risk that in critiquing a nutty project like that, you draw unnecessary attention to it. I was explaining why, despite that risk, I thought the film had garnered enough momentum to merit a thorough rebuttal.
These are your exact words, from the "Just Asking Questions" podcast, with Zach Weissmueller and Liz Wolfe:
"I know The Fifth Column podcast talked about it in slightly skeptical, but mostly in a sort of way of endorsing a lot of its claims, or at least giving credibility to them. And then Coleman, I think, really pushed it into the mainstream."
You can go back and listen to TFC's discussion about this. Episode 435, starting at the 15-minute mark, through the first hour or so.
https://wethefifth.substack.com/p/435-tfcs-holiday-racism-spectacular
They did not "mostly in a sort of way endorse" the claims made in the documentary, neither did they give credibility to the documentary.
Michael Moynihan concluded with this:
“a counterpoint documentary, rather than a let’s-look-at-the-evidence documentary.”
If that is an endorsement of something, then we need to change the definition of the word endorsement.
That Moynihan quote gets at an interesting nuance that their group is eliding. A work in the “counterpoint” genre only does its job well when it conveys the heretofore underreported perspective in an intellectually defensible way. But of course the documentary we’re talking about is serially misleading and untrustworthy. The cop’s perspective is an absolutely valid perspective to factor into one’s overall web of information about this and other cases, but the assumption that *this film* is a respectable presentation of that perspective is completely unfounded. To present a bullshit-ass documentary as a valuable counterpoint is itself a huge red flag.
You're trying to get TFC in trouble for something they didn't do.
This is so transparent it's unbelievable.
What kind of "journalism" is this? Are you now the gatekeeper of what is okay to talk about, and what isn't?
Does everyone need to have the *correct* interpretation of everything for their views in general to be valid in your opinion, Berny?
I disagree forcefully with TFC's opinions on the TikTok bill. But I respect their opinions. Do I then go and say: "they're amplifying pro-TikTok views? Please.
This is all so ridiculous.
Actually, they do, if you go beyond the cherry picked parts, as I soon will.
Shikha, I genuinely do not believe that you believe what you're saying.
Because this is reaching the point of absurdity now.
Did you read Matt's response?
https://substack.com/profile/4280296-matt-welch/note/c-51852575?utm_source=notes-share-action&r=aakyu
Just listened to just throwing it out there…I mean your just making statements…I mean asking questions…and never thought a podcast…I mean 30 K word article with as many hyper links would be drawing any unnecessary critic, I mean attentions to it….Coleman Hughes acquitted himself quite well [and shoulda been Chauvins devil’s advocate] and garnered enough momentum to credit a thorough rebuttal. Not jus sayin Balko…..TRU!!! Can a brotha get a Witt ness!!! Ramblin man gotta run on…Peace through superior mental firepower. 🍺✌️
Imagine being such a frustrated reject that you're spamming us across multiple platforms because your favorite podcast was described as amplifying something that they in fact amplified. I mean, your request for a correction here and your request for an apology on X literally preceded your request for clarification about what "amplify" means—which is hilariously backwards. But I know why, though. You had pre-signaled your distaste for Radley when the piece first came out, saying something to the effect of, "Oh God, am I going to have to agree with Radley on something now?" We're supposed to treat the person with an a priori hatred of Radley as a careful arbiter here? Laughable. We stand behind Radley's piece in its entirety.
Yes, it's true I am biased against Radley Balko. I dont like the way he interacts with people. That doesn't mean that my criticism of the article is invalid. In fact, you've done it again here in your reply, by claiming that TFC did in fact "amplify" (whatever that means) the documentary. Have you listened to the podcast episode in question?
I did. I'm a TFC fan who listened to the podcast the week they released it. To Radley's point, the first I'd heard of TFOM was on TFC. That alone justifies the use of the word "amplify" (to make something louder).
There's nothing wrong with discussing the documentary, but I remember feeling at the time that the skepticism they displayed was mostly throat-clearing so they could make the point that TFOM was bringing an important perspective to the conversation. After reading Balko's series, I know they credulously repeated one major error - whether the hold Chauvin used on Floyd was part of MPD training - and, as far as I can tell, they refuse to engage with this fact. Instead, they're pushing a meta-conversation about the word "amplify." When Welch addresses the criticisms of their podcast toward the end of his post, he claims they never bought the "MRT narrative," but that's plainly untrue if you listen to the episode.
Again, this is coming from a disappointed fan. I'd hoped they would talk about the issues with Coleman's piece on the pod... maybe reflect on their own talk about the doc... but that didn't happen...
To the broader point, we wouldn't be reading the piece above if TFP had issued a correction. IMO, this article is warranted... because the back and forth over the last few months *has revealed something interesting about this loose community of center-right pundits.
You are literally saving me the hassle of writing my commentary although I still will :)
Being proooogressive means never having to say you are sorry
Thank you for writing this. I watched "The Fall of Minneapolis" and was horrified by it. So add me to the list of people whose mind you have changed about it.
Jumping ship from the fifth column after how they all handled this topic. They have major blind spots. I appreciate the folks trying to hold people's feet to fire. Had little exchange with Matt Welch. Doubt he will respond.
https://wethefifth.substack.com/p/firehose-84-did-we-really-mostly/comment/51847008?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=1dvvyx
Thanks. You captured exactly how I feel. I honestly think I'm being gas lighted here, especially on the cop-centric point. Matt claims that he meant that as a criticism. In fact, he meant it as a complement. He appreciated it. We got that portion of the podcast transcribed. I can share it with you if it'll be helpful. You'll need to send me your email, though.
Heterodoxy is a brand and creed just like any other, and it breeds its own groupthink - I believe in part because the left so often repels it and isolates it as much as possible, such that someone who adopts heterodoxy inevitably shifts ever-rightward.
It’s also a consequence of the collapse of newsrooms, though. At every organization we see people routinely speaking on issues where they have limited expertise.
Agreed there. Among other problems, claiming to be free speech absolutists, and in many cases, supporting censorship of porn (eg, Louise Perry and the neo-radfem ‘gender critical’ crowd) or of social media (which Jonathan Haidt wants strongly regulated for the proverbial good of the children). I give FIRE credit for being consistent ‘free-speech absolutists’, but too many of these folks invoke free speech selectively until it’s an issue that bothers *them*.
That said, I think the problem is tribalism all the way down. Anti-anti-woke is very much a tribe too and coming from just as much a place of motivated-skepticism as Bari Weiss and company. And unfortunately, I’d put The Unpopulist in that box, even if coming from a somewhat less dogmatic perspective than Michael Hobbes or the Media Matters crew.
I mean, I think there are ways to be principled and still be iffy on the margins. (Walk with me here). Pre-AI someone could be pro-free speech and anti-porn by arguing from a labor/sex-work position. And the social media thing can be more about platforms and age-of-access than about right of speech. Especially since algorithms severely warp the “town square”. A platform free of algorithmic suggestions and user profiling could be argued to be free speech; a platform that manipulates what you see is something else.
Also I don’t recall Louise Perry being huge on free speech? Haidt is big on free speech *culture*, especially in academia - which doesn’t necessarily mean purely free platform access for minors.
There are many ways in.
This type of unfounded contrarian writing is why I dropped The Free Press a couple of months ago.
I watched the discussion on the Reason podcast with Balko and Hughes. Balko fails to understand the point made repeatedly by Hughes, that he is arguing not that Chauvin is innocent, but that the prosecution did not prove their case to the "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard.
A jury, weighing all the evidence, disagrees. The judge overseeing the case disagrees. An appellate court that heard this argument disagrees.
How anyone could have watched the horror of that murder and reached the conclusion that the jury was "mistaken" is simply delusional or deliberately spouting propaganda.
Yes, and had he been found not guilty by that jury, he would have been deemed "innocent", but he wasn't, so Hughes can say he's not saying Chauvin was innocent, but had the jury decided there was reasonable doubt as Hughes argues, he'd have been found not guilty. He's was found guilty--that's the way it works.
hw just made a point I want to agree with. Hughes seems to think that an argument posing an alternative scenario that challenges the prosecution's "is itself exculpatory." That is not how reasonable doubt works. The word "reasonable" has always been interpreted as "reasonable in the eyes of a jury of defendant's peers." In rare cases where an argument of doubt is overwhelmingly compelling to a judge and not a jury, the judge can set the jury verdict aside, and appeals can challenge various bases on which the jury reached its verdict if they violate due process. But the standard of what counts as "reasonable" is set by juries and judges, not by commentators.
Now, if Hughes wants to persuade his audience that the jury was wrong, using his own standards, he's free to do that. But he cannot legitimately argue that *his* doubt is exculpatory, or that the law was violated because the doubt he feels is justified was not deemed justified by the jury and judges.
This^^^
Hughes repeatedly suggests that the way to evaluate whether the state has proved its case beyond a reasonable doubt is to ask whether "there is another reasonable explanation" for Floyd's death, but that's not even close to what the burden of proof means or what the jury was tasked with deciding.
I think your expose is worthwhile, but the details are so minor and semantic that I can't assume bad faith on the part of Hughes. The larger message of his piece was that there should have been reasonable doubt in the trial, and that normal legal circumstances didn't apply in the Chauvin trial. This seems potentially valid, given the information we have about the jury after the fact. Keep in mind: even police (with several years of total LE experience) who simply restrained bystanders went to prison for YEARS. We should absolutely be honest about the details of the trial but the weight of the dishonesty still rests 95% on the legacy media, which misreported this case (and other, politically-related incidents) incredibly dishonestly.
https://jmpolemic.substack.com/
So the legacy media were the jurors? Or did they tell the jury how to decide?
Or did they influence the defendant’s legal representation?
HOW did normal legal circumstances not apply?
Who picks the jury?
The “weight of dishonesty”?
Jurors openly admitted to racial bias
Racial bias in jury decisions is a longstanding tradition in the United States of America…
https://www.google.com/search?q=all+white+jury+convicts+black+man&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-us&client=safari
I don't know about Nocera, who was always a good business writer, but something serious has happened to Bari Weiss. She was an interesting voice at the NYT, and I can imagine that being driven out by the Slack Militia took an emotional toll, but she has wildly overcompensated. The web site, the "university" and her whole public posture has severely compromised her intellectual reputation. Sad.
I think this is a pretty big misreading of what’s happening.
How so?
It’s narrativizing something. As in “these opinions are doubled down on” because people are too anti woke that their opinions don’t come from an honest place. That’s just what is being said here. That’s what the fifth guys are upset about. In a very high concept way Radley and shikma are calling them liars.
See. They didn’t denounce it “enough”. Which is a weird fucking thing to say right? What is the proper level? Is this just the ribbon bit from sienfeld? Do the guys at the fifth just not want to wear the ribbon? That seems to be what’s upsetting people.
And that’s fucking weird to me. That their retraction (of what I have no idea I’m a frequent listener and I honestly have no idea what was controversial other than they mentioned it and said it was kind of crappy, but interesting from a media perspective). That’s it. That’s “amplification”. That’s to be apologized for? It’s so bizarre.
I find their unnecessary defense of themselves honest and pretty convincing. I find the cherry picking and mental gymnastics of the populist a tad disappointing.
Put this clown on ignore the moment he told me I couldn’t wear cargo pants.
Uh oh, you've stumbled on the wedge issue...
I don't blame you!