Where Are The Celebrities To Protest Idaho Rancher’s Death-By-Cop?

Celebrity, Criminal Injustice, Justice, Law, Military, Morality, Private Property, Racism, The State

Nobody will march for the right to life of 62-year-old Idaho rancher Jack Yantis. Certainly not Hollywood director Quentin Tarantino.

Cop brutality is an endemic problem, but so is the immoral, meddlesome and mindless nature of celebrity in America. Do you suppose Tarantino, marching with Black Lives Matter or some proxy thereof, would protest the murder by cop, Sunday Nov. 1, of Mr. Yantis?

The Idaho rancher was shot dead by cops when he appeared on the scene of a car crash adjacent to his farm, involving one of his bulls. The cops were about to put the animal down. You know that the obedient (white) rural community of Adams County, Idaho, will accept the loss of one of theirs and move on.

Decentralizing and Deregulating Republican Politics

Conservatism, Elections, Media, Politics, Regulation, Republicans

Even a hint of the dreaded GOP establishment creeping back into their midst has some in the Republican campaigns screaming for an exorcist.

Via Breitbart:

Several 2016 GOP presidential campaigns are now revolting, not just against the Republican National Committee (RNC) controlling the debate process, but against controversial GOP establishment lawyer Ben Ginsberg’s efforts to insert himself into the process.
Aides to four top campaigns—those of billionaire Donald Trump, former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, and Ohio Gov. John Kasich—have all confirmed they will not sign onto a letter organized by Ginsberg after the GOP presidential campaigns all broke from the RNC on Sunday night.

For some candidates it’s all for show: Kasich is establishment. Ditto Christie. Others are for real. But it’s all good. Any challenge to the existing political order is good. The Republican campaigns have begun divesting the Republican National Committee (RNC) of its overweening powers. Why should a central command apparatus control the political process? When it comes to libertarian candidates, we know how the RNC has behaved. The campaigns are also firing a media organ that, together with party apparatchiks, has generally been a bad-faith broker between the public, on the one hand, and any Republican, libertarian or constitutionally minded political candidate.

At this point, in this magnificent upheaval in American party politics, Fox News fans should take a moment to consider why it is that most of the network’s anchors were almost as livid as the liberal media over the ongoing revolt among the ranks of the candidates. The reason is that Fox News is mainstream media. Fox even set the tone of the debates, with a performance almost as odious as that of CNBC. Come to think of it, only little Andy Cooper of CNN did his journalistic due diligence as debate moderator, this year.

Fox News’ Political Insiders Reject Their Insider Status

Democrats, Elections, Politics, Republicans

The Fox News show Political Insiders may have to change its name since the term political insider has, at long last, become a pejorative. Regular Doug Schoen appeared on November 1, right away protesting too much about being no an insider. The pollster declared himself an OUTSIDER. The former “long-time Clinton insider” may no longer be a Clinton insider, but he is the consummate insider in Republican circles; a Democrat house-trained by Republicans insiders.

Pat Caddell, on the other hand, is a different kind of animal. Caddell was perhaps the only Democrat (other that Dennis Kucinich) to express righteous indignation, in 2013, over the treatment of the tea party by no other than “establishment Republicans.” They “wanted the IRS to go after Tea-Party groups,” contended Caddell. These groups “are an outside threat to their power hold, the lobbying-consulting class of the Republican party.

In the wonderful chaos initiated by the Republican campaign of Donald Trump, it’s good to see the insider honorific become a liability.

Blind, Self-Absorbed Media Lose Out In The NYC Marathon

Human Accomplishment, Pop-Culture, Reason, Sport, The Zeitgeist

In the context of the 2015 TCS New York City Marathon, whose “story” ought to be more compelling to a rational individual?

The story of Kenyans Stanley Biwott and Mary Keitany who won the race, or the quirky story of some blind Frenchman, who resides in the US, seems to have access to all the resources in the world, and decided on a whim to recruit friends to assist him in running a marathon (the result of which would be guaranteed face-time on the American mass media, which is forever searching out freaky stories, or ways to shape their viewers’ notion of heroism).

The correct answer—yes, I’d argue there is such a thing—is the two Kenyans. You can be sure that the two gifted, heroic runners acquired their endurance and speed by running barefoot to school and back, each day. Barefoot not because it’s the latest (Western) trend in running, but by necessity.

Wow! Can you believe that the barefoot line was written above before I looked up the story, “What Makes Kenya’s Marathon Runners The World’s Best”?

In addition, most kids usually run to school barefoot, which I think has some effect because it means they grow up being excellent runners …

In fact, the “ran to school every day” thought was first floated on Barely a Blog in 2012, on 07.26.12 @ 3:01 pm, to be precise.

In any event, our heroes are: Anyone who runs a marathon, in general. And the incredible Kenyan champions who run against all odds.

In sum, sentimentality clouds judgment and leads to misplaced sympathy and, consequently, to the blind self-absorption and solipsism on display in the blind man Fox News segment.