Author Archives: Joe Loveland

About Joe Loveland

I've worked for politicians, a PR firm, corporations, nonprofits, and state and federal government. Since 2000, I've run a PR and marketing sole proprietorship. I think politics is important, maddening, humorous and good fodder for a spirited conversation. So, I hang out here when I need a break from life.

For the Gander

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Guest post by Noel Holston

As we know, thanks to the leak that hit front pages like a Russian missile, the U.S. Supreme Court’s carefully cultivated conservative majority almost certainly will strike down Roe v. Wade later this year, throwing decisions about the legality of abortion back to the 50 states.

Especially if you live in state where virtually all abortions will be banned, it’s time to start thinking about what can be done to equalize the personal liberty that is being taken away from women.

Given that men are responsible for upwards of 99% of unwanted pregnancies, it’s only fair that guys should be required to step up.

Call it what you will — turnabout is fair play or equal justice under the law – but one answer is penis licensing.

Abortion foes should insist that all males over the age of 15 should be required to register immediately as potential procreators. Boys can will tested for reproductive ability as they approach puberty. Once they’ve come of age, they’ll have to register as well.

The penile equivalent of concealed carry will be legal. But a guy removing his willy from his pants for sexual purposes will need to show his license to his prospective female partner, known in blue states and cities as a woman, in red zones as a vessel. He’ll also need to get his female partner’s written consent and have his sperm card stamped and notarized.

Neighbors, relatives and wingmen will be able to collect monetary rewards for reporting penile misuse that results in an unwanted pregnancy. Convicted violators will be subject to fines for first offenses, jail terms for subsequent offenses. There will be no procreative equivalent of capital punishment, however. We are an enlightened society. Exceptions will be granted to men who undergo certified voluntary vasectomy.

What’s oppressive for the goose may be just as oppressive for the gander, but at least we would avoid a hypocritical double standard.

Note: Noel Holston is a freelance writer who lives in Athens, Georgia. He regularly shares his insights and wit at Wry Wing Politics. He’s also a contributing essayist to Medium.com, TVWorthWatching.com, and other websites. He previously wrote about television and radio at Newsday (200-2005) and, as a crosstown counterpart to the Pioneer Press’s Brian Lambert, at the Star Tribune  (1986-2000).  He’s the author of “Life After Deaf: My Misadventures in Hearing Loss and Recovery,” by Skyhorse.

Lying in political ads is legal. Really.

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Guest column by Noel Holston

Athens, Georgia — Throughout the day, and especially around evening news time, Atlanta’s commercial television stations are bombarding viewers in the greater metro area with paid political advertising. The primaries for Georgia governor, U.S. Senate and other races are just three weeks away.

One spot in particular jumps out. Former President Donald Trump, in a voice-over, endorses David Perdue for Georgia governor over incumbent Brian Kemp. Trump derides Kemp for refusing to find him the votes to overturn his loss to Joe Biden in 2020 and for failing to exercise his supposed authority to simply throw out the ballots.

This is, of course, a bald-faced lie — indeed, part of the “Big Lie” that is even now being investigated by a U.S. House select committee.

Mainstream media ads also amplify The Big Lie.

Even as a grand jury convenes in Atlanta to determine whether Trump criminally interfered in the election when he phoned Kemp and pressured him to alter election results.

Kemp and Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s Secretary of State, both Republicans who themselves had voted for Trump, simply declined to exercise powers that didn’t have. They refused to ignore recounts and facts. They refused to cheat.

But still the ad runs and runs, with Trump kvetching about what was “stolen” from him and his supporters.

How can this be? How can these TV stations keep showing attack ads that make claims that their own news anchors, both local guys and their respective network counterparts, routinely mention only with the modifiers “false” or “baseless”? Is there no “truth in advertising” requirement?

Short answer: No.

At least not where political advertising is concerned.

I emailed my concern about this a couple of days ago to WXIA-TV, the NBC affiliate in Atlanta that I most often watch for news. What can I say? I have a crush on Andrea Mitchell.

A WXIA representative got back to me this afternoon. Here’s the reply. I’m guessing you did not know this:

“The Federal Communications Commission’s political broadcast rules actually prohibit television stations from refusing or altering political advertising from any legally qualified candidate,” WXIA’s spokesperson said.

“More specifically, the FCC says that a person who has publicly announced his or her intention to run for nomination or office, is qualified to run under the appropriate federal, state or local laws to run and has met all of the other necessary qualifications to run for and hold the office they are seeking, is permitted to purchase political advertising time within 45 days of a primary election or 60 days of a general or special election in which that person is a candidate.

“Additionally, television stations cannot censor or alter the content of political ads being run in any way. The ads must be run in their original form — even if their content differs from the ordinary program content that the station would regularly air.

“A station is also prohibited from rejecting a political ad from a candidate, despite its content. As a result, broadcast stations are not responsible for the content of those particular political ads, even if the content may be demonstrably false or defamatory in nature.” (bold italics mine)

So, even if Trump accused Brian Kemp of sheep shagging or Kemp said Trump and Perdue are having an affair, the Atlanta stations would be obligated to televise their ads uncut. And so, in similar situations, would all other federally licensed commercial TV stations in other parts of the country, including yours.

And we worry what Elon Musk is going to do with Twitter.

Note: Noel Holston is a freelance writer who lives in Athens, Georgia. He regularly shares his insights and wit at Wry Wing Politics. He’s also a contributing essayist to Medium.com, TVWorthWatching.com, and other websites. He previously wrote about television and radio at Newsday (200-2005) and, as a crosstown counterpart to the Pioneer Press’s Brian Lambert, at the Star Tribune  (1986-2000).  He’s the author of “Life After Deaf: My Misadventures in Hearing Loss and Recovery,” by Skyhorse.

Public libraries, public enemies

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Guest post by Noel Holston

News item from The Washington Post:

“According to the American Library Association, conservative activists in several states, including Texas, Montana and Louisiana, have joined forces with like-minded officials to dissolve libraries’ governing bodies, rewrite or delete censorship protections, and remove books outside of official challenge procedures.

“Leaders have taken works as seemingly innocuous as the popular children’s picture book In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak off the shelves (and) closed library board meetings to the public. . . .”

All I can say is, IT’S ABOUT TIME!

Public libraries are a public menace, especially for young, impressionable minds. I am living proof — living, permanently scarred proof.

I grew up in Laurel, Mississippi, now best known as the star of HGTV’s popular house-makeover show Home Town. In the late 1950s and 1960s, when I was in my formative youth, it was better known for its shady mayor, Klan activity and a stinky Masonite plant.

Laurel, however, did have a great public library. I was a regular from an early age, especially in summer, when you got a star on a big poster board for every book you consumed.

As I moved into my tweens, I was still happily reading Hardy Boys mysteries, inspirational, youth-oriented biographies of great men like Admiral Richard Byrd, Thomas Edison and Yogi Berra, and occasionally a mystery by Agatha Christie or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I saved my money and even bought books occasionally at Laurel’s Baptist Bible and Book Shop.

At some point, I decided I should read something from the best seller list. I asked at the front desk of the library for recommendations, little knowing there was a subversive librarian just waiting for any easy mark to pounce on.

Miss Eva Mae, a soft-spoken gray-haired lady with a sweet smile, said, in essence, “You know, Noel, there are many better books here than what’s on those best-seller lists.”

“Really?” I said.

“Come with me,” she said with a nod of her head, leading me deep into an adult-section aisle.

She showed me several books. They tended to be slightly worn looking and lacking the fancy, pictorial dust jackets of the newest arrivals.

I passed on David Copperfield and Wuthering Heights. I’d seen the movie versions on TV. I settled on John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, the fattest, heaviest book I had ever checked out.

And that’s how I was lost. The story of the Joad family, hardscrabble farmers like my ancestors, told of poverty and bad luck, desperation, mean bosses, heartless bankers, courage, anger.

Just like that, I outgrew Joe and Frank Hardy. Tom Swift, too. I was soon checking out books by James Baldwin, J.D. Salinger, Carson McCullers, William Faulkner.

And so it was that I gradually morphed into a free-thinking, questing liberal. I couldn’t stop myself. I read books like I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, The Women’s Room, Slaughterhouse 5 and The Other America.

When I had kids, two sons, I read In the Night Kitchen to them — many, many times — despite the fact that it included a couple of illustrations of the hero, a boy named Mickey, in his birthday suit. I let them read To Kill a Mockingbird before they reached puberty.

They became even more progressive and free thinking than I.

So, you see, those Texas folks are right. Public libraries are dangerous places, especially for the young.

They might get ideas.

Note: Noel Holston is a freelance writer who lives in Athens, Georgia. He regularly shares his insights and wit at Wry Wing Politics. He’s also a contributing essayist to Medium.com, TVWorthWatching.com, and other websites. He previously wrote about television and radio at Newsday (200-2005) and, as a crosstown counterpart to the Pioneer Press’s Brian Lambert, at the Star Tribune  (1986-2000).  He’s the author of “Life After Deaf: My Misadventures in Hearing Loss and Recovery,” by Skyhorse.

Biden’s Real Problem

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Guest post by Noel Holston

You know what Joe Biden’s biggest problem is? He’s boring.

That ought to be a good thing, because he’s boring in the positive sense of the term, boring like President Dwight D. Eisenhower was boring. Like Ike, Joe gets things done, maintains his composure, doesn’t dance.

Remember how they called Biden’s Democratic predecessor “no drama Obama”? Comparatively speaking, Obama is Jim Carrey to Joe’s Gary Cooper.

Some of us believed that this was what we wanted — and what the nation needed — after four years of Donald J. Trump’s tweeting, bleating, bragging, lying, bitching and preening. But whether you worshiped The Donald or recoiled at the sight of him, he got us all accustomed to having a President who was a noisy, ongoing public spectacle, a Fast and Furious binge-watch.

Trump only accelerated a trend, however. Climb aboard the Wayback Machine with me for a moment.

Barrack Obama didn’t call himself a rock star or sell himself as such, but once the label was suggested, he took to the role with ease and enthusiasm. Silver spooner George W. Bush had has good ol’ boy act and his flight suit. Bill Clinton had his Arkansas drawl, his sax and his sex appeal. Ronald Reagan was our first “acting” President.

The trend is usually traced back to JFK. He was our first made-by-TV President, quick with the quip, athletic, married to glamour. He probably wouldn’t have beaten Richard Nixon — a one-man psychodrama to come — if he hadn’t been better looking.

Biden, then, is at a distinct disadvantage. He’s just plain Joe, and he’s gotten plainer and paler and slower moving with age.

Which is not to say he’s incompetent. Far from it. It’s just that he doesn’t make the applause meters go haywire. As result, his administration’s real, impressive accomplishments don’t get the respect they’re due.

He’s been President 14 months. He got his historic, decades overdue infrastructure bill passed in 10. The Affordable Health Care Act — Obamacare — took 14.

Dealing with the pandemic, Biden has acted methodically and scientifically to limit the spread and slow the Covid death toll despite the efforts of the anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers that his predecessor had encouraged.

On his greatest foreign policy challenge, Biden has been caught between Americans who want us to boot the Russians out of Ukraine militarily and the who’d like a Putin type, if not Putin himself, to be our President. And that’s just the Republicans.

Still, Biden has handled the crisis with resolve and caution, encouraging our NATO allies without hogging the spotlight. His worst “gaffe,” supposedly, was to intimate that Vladimir Putin murderous assault cannot be forgiven. I’ll take a President who feels moral outrage over one who’s morally outrageous any day.

Biden’s great bungle, supposedly, was our military withdrawal from Afghanistan last year. It probably could have been handled better, though whatever “better” might have looked like would have been panned in some quarters anyway.

Just don’t forget that he bit that bullet, shouldered that responsibility, and foreclosed a boondoggle that three previous Presidents did not. And in doing so, he incalculably improved the standing from which we could condemn Russia’s aggression in Ukraine.

Yes, inflation is cancelling some of the gains of an otherwise booming economy, and while economists point out that pent-up pandemic demand and complicated supply chain snarls would be inflationary factors no matter who was President, Biden is the one who (really, truly) won the election. Inflation is his problem to deal with, and he is.

He hasn’t fixed immigration, reversed income inequality, halted climate change, stopped crime or cured cancer yet, either, but he has committed to those fights. And he hasn’t even served half his term yet.

His approval rating is stuck at a worrisome 41 percent, but I’d wager that if he just weren’t so unexciting, he’d be 10 or 15 points higher.

Maybe if he dyed his hair an unnatural color and learned to play the saxophone.

We do love a show.

Note: Noel Holston is a freelance writer who lives in Athens, Georgia. He regularly shares his brilliance and wit at Wry Wing Politics. He’s also a contributing essayist to Medium.com, TVWorthWatching.com, and other websites. He previously wrote about television and radio at Newsday (200-2005) and, as a crosstown counterpart to the Pioneer Press’s Brian Lambert, at the Star Tribune  (1986-2000).  He’s the author of “Life After Deaf: My Misadventures in Hearing Loss and Recovery,” by Skyhorse.

Lt. Governor Matt Birk? We Need to Know a Lot More

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Former Minnesota State Senator Scott Jensen (R-Chaska) announced who he believes is the second most qualified Minnesotan, after him, to run Minnesota’s state government during very challenging times.  Jensen picked — fake gjallarhorn, please! — the Minnesota Vikings’ former Center Matt Birk. 

A celebrity! Intriguing! Fresh!

An all-white male ticket! That has got to be first for Republicans, right?

Predictably, the Birk announcement got a lot of uncritical news coverage in Minnesota, particularly from local TV and radio newsrooms.  These are some of the same jock sniffers who spend roughly one-third of most news broadcasts building up local athletes as heroes.

And who knows, the Birk stunt just might work, politically speaking.  After all, this is a state that “shocked the world” and elected an outlandish and churlish former fake wrestler, and then was shocked when he turned out to be an outlandish and churlish fake Governor.

To be fair, Birk is certainly no Ventura. The Saint Paul native is Harvard educated, and not clownish like Ventura . He’s also done a lot of admirable charitable work in the community. On many levels, I admire him.

But he’s applying to be Governor, and he is largely an unknown quantity on policy issues. So maybe the local media should pump the breaks just a bit on the Birk bandwagon. You know, like maybe ask him a few questions about his actual plans and positions? 

Reasons for Skepticism

Here’s a few reasons why skepticism is warranted:

He’s an Extremist Abortion Banner.  One of the few Birk policy positions we know about is that he supports overturning the 1973 Roe v. Wade U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion during the first trimester of pregnancy.  Birk feels so strongly about this that he refused to join his Baltimore Ravens teammates in being honored at the White House, because Birk would have had to stand in proximity with then-President Barack Obama, who opposes overturning Roe.  

Citizen Birk obviously had every right to express that opinion. But he is now applying to be Lieutenant Governor for all of Minnesota, and this position puts him at odds with the a huge majority of the people he seeks to represent. Surveys show that two-thirds (67%) of Minnesotans oppose overturning Roe. 

At a time when it looks likely that the court is about to overturn Roe and start allowing state governments to take away women’s abortion rights, Birk’s refusal to listen to two-thirds of his constituents on this timely issue is a particularly big deal.

He’s an Extremist Marriage Equality Banner.  Abortion isn’t the only issue where Birk is out of step with a majority of Minnesotans. In 2012, he very actively campaigned in favor of the Minnesota Marriage Amendment that would have changed the Minnesota constitution to specifically prohibit marriage equality for same-sex couples. 

Once again, Birk is on the right wing fringe, ignoring the opinions of two-thirds of his would-be constituents. A 2018 poll shows 67 percent of Minnesotans support same sex marriage. 

Birk’s positions on abortion rights and marriage equality would seem to portend how he would come down on other socially conservative changes being pushed by the far-right, such as book banning and “don’t say gay” laws.

He’s Unqualified for the Job. Then there’s the small matter of qualifications. Birk currently has as much directly relevant experience to be a heartbeat away from the top position in state government as current Lt. Governor Peggy Flanagan has to be a professional football player.  

After electing a wealthy celebrity with no governing experience President blew up in the nation’s face, maybe we should be a little more cautious about hiring someone who has never done any actual state governance to lead a very complex $48.5 billion per biennium endeavor. How many times do we have to make this same mistake?

He’s Hitched His Wagon to a Extremist Quack.  Even if you like Birk as a player, philanthropist, and sports analyst, and I do, you should learn a little more about his running mate Scott Jensen before signing up to be a Jensen-Birk supporter.  

For instance, the non-partisan fact-checking organization Politifact cited Jensen as a major source of its 2020 “Lie of the Year 2020 about coronavirus downplaying and denial. This is arguably the most lethal political lie of our times, and Jensen played a very prominent and destructive role spreading it. 

Jensen also joined U.S. Capitol insurrectionist Simone Gold and others in suing the federal government to prevent children from receiving COVID-19 vaccines.

But apparently none of this bothered Birk.

COVID denial and anti-vax messaging earned Jensen a lot of love on Fox News and other far-right outlets, but now he is trying to win a plurality of votes in Minnesota, a state with the second highest rate or boosted residents, and where about three-fourths (74%) of voting age residents rejected Jensen’s ignorant, irresponsible medical quackery and got themselves vaccinated.

What We Don’t Know

Beyond the handful of issues cited here, Minnesotans have no idea where Birk stands on a whole host of other important issues. 

Paid family and medical leave?  Public funding for free birth control, which is proven to dramatically reduce unplanned pregnancies and abortions?  Giving Minnesotans the option to buy into MinnesotCare?  Prayer in public schools? Which religion’s prayer? Taxpayers subsidizing billionaire sports team owners’ stadiums?  Making the wealthiest 1% of Minnesotans, which includes Birk, pay higher taxes to fund education improvements?  Accepting Obamacare funding for Medicare expansion in Minnesota? Maintaining the MNsure Obamacare insurance exchange? “Don’t say gay” laws to punish teachers who mention gay people in school? Allowing parents to ban books from school libraries? 

In addition, the state where a majority (52.4%) of 2020 voters rejected Trump should know whether Birk voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020, and whether he plans to vote for the insurrection inciter in 2024.  We also must know whether Birk supports the Big Lie that Trump didn’t lose the 2020 election.

I’m very interested to know the answers to these questions. Is Birk Trumpy enough to win far-right primary votes, but too Trumpy to win swing voters in the general election? Or will Birk expose himself to be insufficiently Trumpy, and subsequently be a “kiss of death” for Jensen in the primaries, where Trump loyalists are dominant and demand total obedience.

To be clear, I deeply respect the man’s ability to calmly read a defense with another man’s hands nestled firmly in his buttocks. Skol!

But maybe Minnesotans deserve to know more about Matt Birk than that.

Yellowstone Offers a MAGA-era Rorschach Test

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Paramount Network’s television series Yellowstone is a huge hit, and I’ve been pondering why.  After all, raising cattle is not something that one would guess most contemporary Americans would likely find particularly riveting.

It strikes me that there are two very different ways to view Yellowstone.  To many like me, it’s consumed as a mafia story. Mafia families use extortion, violence, and other criminal methods to make money and preserve power and privilege, and that is precisely what Yellowstone’s Dutton family is all about, episode after episode.

There’s a lot to like about Yellowstone. It is entertaining, beautifully shot, and well-acted.  As with many a mafia story, the story about what will become of the family members pulling out all the stops to maintain their power and privilege has been worth watching.  Before watching it, I might not have believed that a Montana-based Sopranos yarn would work, but it does for me.

It’s far from perfect. The story line gets preposterous at times, the trash-talk scripting often feels particularly contrived, the level of violence displayed is gratuitous, and the simplistic characters seem mostly unwilling or unable to see gray areas in the situations they encounter.  Talented actresses like Kelly Reilly could have been even more interesting to watch with scripts that weren’t so simplistic and over-the-top.  

But beyond the familiar mafia formula, there is another very different way to view Yellowstone.  Many viewers see mega-rancher John Dutton and his loyal family as superheroes, not criminals.  They see an ultra-honorable family fighting for what they believe was once great about America – more hard work, more family loyalty, more agrarian lifestyles, less “politically correct” nonsense, and a might-is-right approach to ensure you always get your way. 

In this case, the superheroes’ superpowers involve guns-a-plenty, humiliating trash-talking, bullying of dissenters, corruption of state and local government, and an unflagging certainty that it’s their God-given right to control anything they damn well want, despite what “the others” – urbanites, environmentalists, the insufficiently macho, and Native Americans – do or say.

A lot of people seem to see Yellowstone this way.  Go to any rural or small town area, and you’re going to see folks wearing Yellowstone gear, just the way people wear Captain America, Superman, and Wonder Woman gear.  These folks not only want to watch the Duttons, they want to be them.

Indeed, the Wall Street Journal reported that Yellowstone first became a hit in smaller, more rural markets, not on the coasts.

The show wrapped its fourth season Sunday night with an average 10.4 million total viewers on the Paramount Network, up from 4.5 million in season 1.  The unconventional path “Yellowstone” took to ratings dominance shows how audiences can accrue and change over a series’ lifespan and how regional differences still matter…

Lafayette, Ind., is a “Yellowstone” stronghold. The area around Purdue University had the highest proportion of viewers during season 1 of any small market outside Montana and Wyoming, the region where “Yellowstone” is set, according to Nielsen data on viewers ages 25 to 54.

Loyalists there include Jim Hedrick, 62, whose company Horizon Ag Consulting works with farmers across the Midwest. He says “Yellowstone” mines issues that matter in his circles, such as family cohesion and the development of rural areas.

When “Yellowstone” premiered in 2018, the show ranked fourth in the 25-to-54 age group in the least-populated TV markets, categorized by Nielsen as D markets. In the country’s most populous areas—dubbed A markets, which include New York and Los Angeles—“Yellowstone” didn’t crack the top 50.

Like other superhero tales, Yellowstone sometimes gets pretty unrealistic.  In the real world, no business, including ranching, is immune from criminal law enforcement, environmental protections, eminent domain rules, and political realities.  Deep red rural states trend in those directions, but they’re not nearly as extreme as the Dutton-dominated Montana.

As such, the Yellowstone fantasy offers an escape for viewers who dream of a world where people who look and act like them find ways to control everything. That seems like the “secret sauce” that makes Yellowstone so delicious for so many.

Why are the Duttons viewed by so many as heroes rather than criminals?  For many viewers, the Dutton’s brutal crimes are forgiven – lustily cheered on, even – because of the enemies involved.  The Duttons hate the same people that Trumpists hate — fakey latte-sipping urban dwellers, clueless environmentalist brats, rule-bound government dweebs, hopelessly soft beta male, snowflake cucks, and coddled minorities.

And who doesn’t want to see someone stick it to those guys?

Yellowstone is a kind of Rorschach test that is being seen different ways depending on the individual viewer’s biases and values.  How you interpret it reveals personality characteristics, such as an authoritarian instinct and willingness to rationalize violence and other crimes. 

I have no proof of this, but it seems a safe bet that there is a strong correlation between Trump fans and people who view the corrupt, murderous Duttons as righteous superheros rather than a privileged, power-obsessed crime family.

(By the way, the other way that Yellowstone is fantasy is that the actors like Kevin Costner and Kelly Reilly who are playing right wingers’ heroes are not conservative in their real lives. After campaigning for Reagan earlier in his life, Costner has campaigned for Barack Obama and the Biden Administration’s Pete Buttigieg. And the English actress Reilly is reportedly a Democrat.)

Because Yellowstone has proven so overwhelmingly popular, we surely will see more programming like it. We can expect more “us against them” narratives giving comfort and encouragement to viewers whose fondest wish is to own the libs without pesky laws in the way. 

If I were a right-wing billionaire intent on fanning the culture war flames as a means to maintain and grow my financial power and privilege, I’d bankroll more Yellowstone-like shows to provide entertaining propaganda tools to compliment the news-like propaganda tools that those billionaires already control to great effect.

Everyone likes to fantasize about being a superhero, and shows like Yellowstone offers heroic role models and road maps for white people bending and breaking laws to maintain their privilege in a rapidly changing world. 

And you know what? If the acting, story, scenery, and production levels are as good as they are in Yellowstone, the chances are that plenty of liberals like me will probably watch the coming Yellowstone clones, though through a very different lens.

Minnesota Gubernatorial Candidate Proposes Gift Cards for Families Who Make Kids “Herd Immunity Enhancers”

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Saint Paul, Minnesota — Minnesota gubernatorial candidate Scott Jensen today called on the Minnesota Legislature to give $2,000 gift cards to eligible Minnesotans who “responsibly refuse” COVID-19 vaccinations for their children.  Jensen, a medical doctor and former state senator, says his proposal is the best way to help families without resorting to “sick Nazi-like forced medical experimentation of the Walz regime.”

“We’re putting out a call for patriotic families who agree to keep their children free of tracker chips and DNA mutilation, and instead serve as beautiful little herd immunity enhancers,” said Jensen surrounded by unmasked young children at a news conference held in conjunction with a protest of a community vaccination event. “As a doctor, I know we must end the so-called virus the way we did before humans went soft, by fearlessly facing it maskless and trusting in God and his gift of natural herd immunity.”

The Jensen proposal comes in the wake of a recent announcement by Governor Tim Walz that his administration will provide $200 gift cards to Minnesota families who agree to vaccinate their 12- to 17-year old children.  The families of vaccinated children will also be entered into a lottery for $100,000 in tuition for a Minnesota public college of their choice.

Jensen, who is seeking the Republican endorsement for governor in party caucuses that are expected to be heavily populated by vocal Trump loyalists and vaccine opponents, announced that Minnesotans who don’t get vaccinated will get $2,000 gift cards to TrumpStore, the official retail arm of the Trump Organization. 

They also will be entered into a lottery for a scholarship to Trump University. Upon questioning, Jensen clarified that the scholarships will be revert to the Trump Organization in the event that the university is unable to serve the children.

In what Jensen called a prudent move to conserve tax dollars, he also indicated that the offer would not be available to citizens in Hennepin, Ramsey, St. Louis, and Cook counties.

On his website, Former President Trump praised Jensen and his proposal as “a beautiful doctor who knows a great store and university when he sees it and is going to be a great pro-Trump governor of the corrupt election-stealing fake state of Minnesota.”

Note:  This post is satire, the use of humor and exaggeration to make a point. Jensen did not make this proposal. Only the part about Walz and his proposal is true.

Truth: The non-partisan fact-checking organization Politifact cited Jensen as a major source of its 2020 “Lie of the Year 2020 about coronavirus downplaying and denial. Politifact noted Jensen’s appearances on Fox News claimed that overflowing hospitals were committing Medicare fraud by overcounting COVID-19 cases. Then-President Donald Trump repeated the unsubstantiated claims as he minimized the seriousness of the COVID pandemic while other wealthy countries around the world were implementing effective public health protections.

Experts say the number of COVID deaths are likely under-counted, not over-counted, due to false negatives on tests and a lack of testing.

In May 2021, Jensen also joined U.S. Capitol insurrectionist Simone Gold and others in suing the federal government to prevent children from receiving COVID-19 vaccines. The lawsuit claims that COVID-19 poses “zero risk” to children. The suit indicates that Jensen believes “it would be reckless to subject anyone in that age group to the experimental COVID-19 vaccine” and that he believes recommending that children get vaccinated “would violate his oath as a doctor and place him in an untenable position.”

Data from the American Academy of Pediatrics shows that more than 6 million children have tested positive for Covid since the beginning of the pandemic.  While children are less likely to get hospitalized and die than adults, it does happen.  Children also help spread the virus to more vulnerable people.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) , 77.9% of Minnesota adults (18+) have been vaccinated.

Minnesota Continues to Soak The Poor

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Minnesota Republicans love to portray Minnesota as a liberal la-la land that unfairly victimizes their oppressed wealthy donors by “soaking them” with high taxes. 

Not true.  The reality is, Minnesota’s state and local taxes remain regressive, meaning that the rate of taxation actually decreases as incomes increase. 

This is wrong. Those with higher incomes should pay a larger proportion of their income in taxes, because they can afford to do so without suffering as much of a blow, proportionally speaking, to their quality of life.  

Conservatives typically point to state income tax rates to make their case, because that tax is indeed progressive.  The problem with that tired old spin is that the income tax is far from the only tax.  Minnesotans also pay sales, property, and excise (on alcohol, tobacco, and motor fuels) taxes, and those taxes are all very regressive.  That is, those types of taxes all hit people with lower incomes much harder, as a percent of income, than they hit people with higher incomes.

So the most relevant measure of whether Minnesota’s overall tax system is based on the ability-to-pay is the effective tax rate for all state and local taxes combined.  Every year, the Minnesota Department of Revenue calculates this amount.  Here is what the most recent version looks like.

Here are a few important things to note:

  • Tax Burdens Are Decreasing, Not Increasing.  Between 2018 and 2023 (projected), tax burdens are decreasing at every level of income.  Remember this the next time you hear conservatives whining about “skyrocketing taxes.”
  • Progressivity Is Improving, But Not Enough.  Between 2018 and 2023 (projected), the gap between the effective rate for the poorest and wealthiest Minnesota pay is narrowing , but it’s not a large or sufficient improvement.  The arc of the moral universe is bending towards justice, but it’s a painfully slow rate-of-change.
  • Minnesota’s Taxes Remain Very Regressive.  This is the most important thing to take away from this chart. Minnesota still has a very regressive tax system that hits poor people much harder than rich people.  Minnesota’s poorest taxpayers pay a 24.7% state and local tax rate, while our wealthiest taxpayers only pay 11.6%.

Before you shrug this off, stop and really think about it. The wealthiest Minnesotans are required to pay less than half the tax burden the poorest Minnesotans are required to pay.  For those who want Minnesota to be a more just and equitable place, the work is far from done.

Yes, stalwart conservative protectors of the wealthy will be quick to say, but the wealthy pay much larger tax bills than the poor! This is true. But it’s also true that when someone at the bottom of the income heap has to pay 24.7% for taxes out of their nearly empty wallet, that takes leaves a lot less to provide for their family than when the wealthiest Minnesotans only have to pay 11.6% for taxes out of their much fatter wallets and investment portfolios.   The poor person may not be able to pay rent, while the rich person may only need to leave ever so slightly less to their already well-pampered scions.

Every time someone proposes asking the wealthy to pay more in taxes, wealthy news anchors, pundits, and politicians breathlessly characterize the proposal as “controversial” and “unrealistic.”

For what it’s worth, Americans disagree. For instance, a POLITICO/Morning Consult poll found an overwhelming 76 percent of registered voters believe the wealthiest Americans should pay more in taxes. It might be controversial at the large donor soirees, but not most other places in America.

So when Minnesota DFL legislators propose, as they did this year, to create a new fifth tier state income tax rate of 11.15% on income above $1 million (or $500,000 for single filers), don’t fall into the trap of repeating the conservatives’ well-focus grouped “it’s soaking the rich” narrative.

Instead, look at these data and say “it’s a start.”

MN GOP’s Freedom-to-Infect Agenda As Bad Politically As It Is Morally

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Minnesota Republicans are falling all over themselves to the appeal to non-maskers and non-vaxers who they apparently believe, probably correctly, will make up a majority of Republican caucus participants in the 2022 election cycle.  They’re obsessed with the people in their partisan echo chambers.

Take Republican gubernatorial candidate Scott Jensen, MD, who made his name in conservative politics by questioning how serious a threat COVID was and suing to keep life-saving vaccines away from young people. Jensen is calling for  businesses and citizens to engage in “civil disobedience” by ignoring experts’ vaccine and mask recommendations and requirements.

The physician turned politician who is under investigation by the Minnesota Board of Medical Practice for spreading misinformation about COVID19, also wants to pass legislation to make Minnesota something called a “health freedom sanctuary state.”  Dr. J was light on details about what this would mean for Minnesotans, but presumably it would ensure we all have the sacred right to infect and kill others.

Jensen is hardly alone.  Throughout the pandemic, Minnesota Republicans at the state and local level have continually questioned the need for measures to protect Minnesotans against COVID.  They have advocated freedom-to-infect positions similar to those used by neighboring deep red state South Dakota, which has by far the worst per capita COVID death rate in the midwest region (236 COVID deaths per 100,000 residents). Meanwhile, Governor Tim Walz’s Minnesota has one of the best in the region (142 COVID deaths per 100,000 residents).

Being opposed to masking and vaccinating is another issue that looks to be a savvy political move for Republicans during party caucuses and primaries, but potentially disastrous when it comes time to win a plurality in general elections, where Democratic and independent voters get their say.

After all, about 75 percent of Minnesotans over age 12 now have at least one dose of vaccine, and that number will be higher by election day.  And national polls show large majorities of Americans back extremely tough restrictions.

  • 64 percent support state and local governments requiring masks to be worn in all public places.
  • 59 percent support requiring teachers to wear masks in schools.
  • 58 percent support requiring students to wear masks in schools.
  • 57 percent support limiting travel on airplanes to vaccinated people.
  • 51 percent support limiting attendance to bars and restaurants to vaccinated people.
  • 56 percent support limiting crowded gatherings — movies, sporting events, concerts– to vaccinated people.
  • 60 percent support requiring vaccines for federal government and large business employees.

At a time when 80 percent of Americans are concerned about the spread of the COVID19 Delta variant, Minnesota Republicans are hell-bent on making opposition to restrictions their centerpiece issue.  These surveys show that only about one-quarter to one-third of Americans agree with Republicans, with the remaining respondents unsure. 

Oh and by the way, Minnesota’s DFL Governor Tim Walz, the person Republicans portray as being way too radical on COVID restrictions, hasn’t supported anything anywhere near as restrictive as the previously mentioned widely popular measures. Not even close. And since Republicans stripped Walz of his emergency powers in the spring of 2021, he hasn’t been able to do much of anything to protect Minnesotans.

Even if opposing safe and effective COVID protections during the deadliest pandemic in a century were savvy on a political level, it would be morally unconscionable. But it’s every bit as indefensible politically as it is morally.

Cruelty Is No Longer A Disqualifier For Republicans

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I can think of lots of legitimate reasons why Republican Party Chair Jennifer Carnahan should resign.

Pathetic fundraising.  No statewide offices held.  Unwillingness to condemn traitorous insurrectionists and their inciter.

However, knowing a donor and activist accused of sex trafficking isn’t one of them. 

Now, if it’s discovered that Carnahan knew about the child victimization and did nothing about it, that’s different.  But as far as I know, that evidence doesn’t exist.  Until and unless proof surfaces, Carnahan doesn’t deserve to lose her position over a purely “guilt by association” charge. Party chairs and politicians need to work with thousands of people, and they can’t be expected to know everything about all of them.

Meanwhile, however, the evidence that Chair Carnahan is breathtakingly cruel has been confirmed.  Oddly buried at the end of a long Pioneer Press article is this shocking tidbit:

Carnahan also confirmed that an audio clip being circulated by her critics on social media contains callous comments that she made about her husband’s (Minnesota Congressman Jim Hagedorn) medical condition during a phone conversation. Hagedorn is battling stage four kidney cancer, and announced last month that he’d had a recurrence. He was first diagnosed in February of 2019, shortly after he took office and a couple months after they were married in December 2018. Doctors removed his affected kidney in December of 2020 after a course of immunotherapy.

“I don’t care. Jim, he’s going to die of cancer in two years,” she can he heard saying. “So be it.”

Gulp.

For the record, the leader of the party that endlessly preaches “personal responsibility” blames the comment on, wait for it, wine and grief. 

That might be the most lame crisis response I’ve ever heard. Millions of spouses with terminally ill spouses feel grief and indulge in wine, but their grief and buzz doesn’t cause them to express indifference.

This part is pretty damning.  Then again, it probably won’t drive her out her job.  If mere cruelty were a disqualifier, Republicans still wouldn’t be worshiping en masse at the altar of a man who mocks handicapped people, brags about being a serial groper of women’s genitals, screws a porn star while his wife is carrying his child, and belittles a decorated prisoner of war. 

Fortunately for Carnahan, in today’s Republican Party, cruelty clearly isn’t close to a disqualifier.

Does Walz Care About ONECare?

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So far, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz has largely been a responsive caretaker governor, responding to the crises du jour rather than than actively pushing a progressive agenda and building a legacy for himself.

Governor Walz’s legacy is essentially “pissed off all sides while consumed with thankless pandemic management.” I think he did a reasonably good job managing the pandemic, but he definitely had to make enemies doing it.

One partial break from caretaker mode was his poorly named “ONECare” proposal, which would give Minnesotans the option to buy into MinnesotaCare. MinnesotaCare is a longstanding program serving low-income individuals and families who can’t get employee-sponsored health insurance and don’t quality for Medicaid, which is called Medical Assistance (MA) in Minnesota.

Giving Minnesota health insurance consumers of all income levels this additional option would ensure that every Minnesotan in every county had at least one health insurance option available to them. That’s a big deal. It also would bring more competition to an individual market that sorely needs more competition. Over time, this could result in lower premiums for consumers.

Walz has not pushed his proposal particularly hard. Meanwhile, other states’ Governors are leading their states forward.

Colorado and Nevada this year passed public option plans—government-run health insurance plans—that are set to launch in 2023 and 2026, respectively. They join Washington state, which enacted its law in 2019 and went live with its public option in January.

The early results from Washington state’s experiment are disappointing. In many parts of the state, premiums for the public option plans cost more than premiums for comparable commercial plans.

Many of the state’s hospitals have refused to take part in the public option, prompting lawmakers to introduce more legislation this year to force participation if there aren’t sufficient health insurance options in a geographic area. And consumer buy-in is also meager. In its first year of operation, the state health insurance exchange sold only 1,443 public option plans, representing fewer than 1% of all exchange policies.

Michael Marchand, chief marketing officer for the Washington Health Benefit Exchange, the state’s health insurance marketplace, said it’s premature to judge the program by its first year.

During the earlier years of Obamacare, the premiums for many commercial plans were high, he pointed out. Eventually, as insurers became more knowledgeable about the markets, prices dropped, he said.

If Governor Walz would get re-engaged in this issue and actively market his plan, they could learn from the experiences of Washington and avoid it’s mistakes. For instance, in areas where there is insufficient health insurance competition, Walz could require hospitals to participate.

A MinnesotaCare buy-in option is extremely popular — only 11% oppose it, according to a Minnesota Public Radio survey. This is probably in part because it is an option. Any Minnesotan who opposes buying into MinnesotaCare — because of conservative ideology or because MinnesotaCare turns out to be expensive or poor quality — they can vote with their feet, as consumers in the state of Washington are doing.

Fighting for a MinnesotaCare buy-in option makes sense for Walz. The polls consistently show that health care is a top issue for voters, and huge majorities consistently trust Democrats over Republicans on that issue.

Moreover, in the 2022 gubernatorial general election campaign Walz may very well be running against a physician, Scott Jensen. This will ensure that health care is high profile in the race. Therefore, candidate Walz needs to be seen fighting for better health care, and this proposal gives him that platform.

If a MinnesotaCare buy-in option passes, Walz finally has a legacy beyond pandemic management. If Senate Republicans kill it, which seems likely, Walz has a great political argument to make while running for reelection and trying to retake the Senate: “I worked my ass off to give you another health insurance option and bring you some price competition, but Republicans like Scott Jensen opposed it on orders from private insurance lobbyists. If you want to more options and more price competition, vote for me and change the Senate leadership.”

Pushing a public option is a great political option for Walz. So why is he so damn cautious about it?

Where’s the Sturgis-level Media Scrutiny of the Minnesota State Fair?

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Many Minnesota news outlets have covered the fact that South Dakota’s Sturgis Motorcycle Rally is once again serving as a COVID-19 super-spreader event that is putting the needs of profit over people.  For instance, the Star Tribune put this excellent article on it’s front page on August 4, 2021:

“Crowds of bikers are rumbling their way towards South Dakota’s Black Hills this week, raising fears that COVID-19 infections will be unleashed among the 700,000 people expected to show up at the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally.

But public health experts warned the massive gathering revved the virus far beyond those who chose to attend. One team of economists argued that the rally set off a chain reaction that resulted in 250,000 cases nationwide. However, that paper was not peer reviewed and was criticized by some top epidemiologists — as well as some bikers — for overestimating the rally’s impact.

While it’s not clear how many cases can be blamed on last year’s rally, it coincided with the start of a sharp increase across the Great Plains that ultimately crescendoed in a deadly winter.

The gathering could potentially power a fresh wave of infections like the one that is currently shattering hospitalization records in parts of the South, said Dr. Michael Osterholm, the director of the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy.

“I understand how people want to move on from this pandemic — God knows I want to — but the reality is you can’t ignore it,” he said. “You can’t just tell the virus you’re done with it.”

That’s responsible in-depth reporting.  South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem and South Dakota business leaders should be held accountable for putting people in danger to ensure that their local businesses continue to rake in $800 million in sales.

After all, 700,000 coming to Sturgis is an awful lot of people.  But you want to know what is more people?  2,046,533.  That’s the number of people who attended the Minnesota State Fair in 2019, the last time it was held. 

Many State Fair attendees will be coming from rural counties where vaccination rates are pathetically low, such as Clearwater County, where only 33 percent are fully vaccinated. Remember that while you visit with that nice young man in the dairy barn.

Compared to Sturgis, we aren’t hearing the same level of concern raised by the local media about the what has long been billed as the “Great Minnesota Get Together.”  For example, buried in paragraph nine of the August 4 article lambasting Sturgis you will find a passing mention of “state fairs.” That’s it.

To be fair, the Star Tribune did cover this public health-oriented criticism of the Fair:

“A state agency that advocates for Minnesotans with disabilities has announced plans to boycott the Minnesota State Fair over the absence of mask mandates and other safety measures that would help contain the possible spread of the coronavirus.

In a strongly worded letter, the Minnesota Council on Disability criticized state leaders for not requiring masks, vaccines or crowd limits at this year’s fair, which begins in two weeks. As justification for boycotting the 12-day event, the organization cited a recent surge in COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations, largely driven by the highly contagious delta variant.”

But this is the exception to the rule from local news outlets. The rule is endless giddy promotion, both of the unpaid and paid variety, of the Great Minnesota Infect Together. What new foods will there be? What amazing bands should we all be traveling to see?  How thrilled are Minnesotans to be attending and “back to normal?” 

These State Fair promotions appear alongside national articles reporting that on the dawn of schools re-opening the level of hospitalizations of children for COVID is at a pandemic high. What’s wrong with this picture?

To be sure, Sturgis and the Minnesota State Fair aren’t equivalent.  But both draw people from a large area to attend a multi-day shoulder-to-shoulder event with substantial indoor components.  This is not exactly what the doctor (Fauci) ordered.

Is the under-reporting of the State Fair public health threat due to the heavy State Fair advertising in news outlets? A lack of courage to criticize Minnesota’s ultimate pop culture sacred cow? Something else?  

Whatever is driving it, it’s not the Minnesota news media’s finest hour.

When LA Fitness Chooses Far-Right Propaganda Over Customer Service

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Any private business obviously has a free speech right to play Fox News on their television(s). But the majority of Americans who voted against Donald Trump, and/or just want better news coverage, also have the right to speak out against those Fox News propaganda pushers.

I know it’s a heavy lift to try to change the world one business TV set at a time. But not trying is too depressing a life for me to live. So yeah, I’m afraid I’m that “that guy.” Not “the PC police.” Not a “cancel culture cop.” Just a guy who isn’t going to remain silent when being force-fed right-wing proselytizing at bars, restaurants, waiting rooms, and health clubs.

After all, Fox News is propaganda, not the “fair and balanced news” it claims to be. As several studies cited by the Washington Post found, Fox is not only unfair and unbalanced, it’s been demonstrably dangerous during the pandemic era:

In April, Kathleen Hall Jamieson of the Annenberg Public Policy Center and Dolores Albarracin of the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign published a peer-reviewed study examining how Americans’ media diets affected their beliefs about the coronavirus.

Administering a nationally representative phone survey with 1,008 respondents, they found that people who got most of their information from mainstream print and broadcast outlets tended to have an accurate assessment of the severity of the pandemic and their risks of infection. But those who relied on conservative sources, such as Fox News and Rush Limbaugh, were more likely to believe in conspiracy theories or unfounded rumors, such as the belief that taking vitamin C could prevent infection, that the Chinese government had created the virus, and that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention exaggerated the pandemic’s threat “to

These findings held even after controlling for viewers’ political affiliation, education, gender and age.

That doesn’t seem to be the kind of information a health club would want to be promoting during the most deadly pandemic in a century.

My Adorable Little Crusade

So when I returned to my health club after the pandemic died down, I was disappointed to see that MSNBC had been dropped from the channel selections on TVs attached to treadmills, ellipticals and step machines, while Fox News remained. I wasn’t too upset, though, because I assumed it was a small oversight that would be easily remedied.

So I politely asked the local manager to add MSNBC as a progressive option for the mouth-breathing masses.  I asked them to either include both Fox and MSNBC in their channel selections, as they did pre-pandemic, or have neither MSNBC nor Fox News. 

I was simply requesting balance. I thought that was darn reasonable, especially since this club is located in a county that gave Biden 71 percent of its vote, compared to just 25 percent for the Fox News poster child. So, I frankly expected them to quickly agree to such a minor and reasonable request.

Surprisingly, the LA Fitness/Esporta manager has refused, and his rationale is absurd.  He claimed the CNN option they were offering in the channel selection was the leftist equivalent to Fox News. 

Earnest wonk that I am, I shared this non-partisan media bias analysis finding that CNN was left-center (“Skews Left” as they put it), and therefore not ideologically comparable to either “Hyper-Partisan Left” MSNBC or “Hyper-Partisan Right” Fox News.

Beyond his CNN argument, the manager also asserted that the availability of WCCO-TV (CBS affiliate) and KSTP-TV (ABC affiliate) stations satisfied their obligation to balance off “Hyper-Partisan” Fox News, so MSNBC wasn’t needed.  He seemed to conclude that any TV news that wasn’t Fox News was progressive, and therefore those local affiliates should somehow count as being a progressive counter-balance to Fox News. 

This claim is also absurd. I pointed out that 1) the vast majority o of the local affiliate stations’ programming was entertainment, such as The Bachelor, NCIS, and NFL football, not news; 2) the local stations’ news was almost entirely focused on weather, sports, crime, pop culture, and local events, and therefore wasn’t comparable to the kind of hard core national news featured on Fox News and MSNBC; and 3) the brief 30-minutes per day of hard national news on those network stations was at best left-center like CNN, and therefore not close to comparable to “Hyper-Partisan Left” MSNBC.

By the way, while I am a commie, I don’t adore MSNBC. It brings some guests, views, and analysis that other stations don’t, so I do tune in. But the cutsieness, pettiness, and long-windedness of Joy Reid, Rachel Maddow, and Lawrence O’Donnell are difficult for me to take.

But if Fox News’s far-right commentary is going to be pushed out to club members there should be something comparable with leftist commentary for the rest of us in this deep blue county. I just wanted a mix of stations that is “fair and balanced.”

After dazzling Manager-guy with this logic and data, I reiterated my simple, fair suggestion: Either include both Fox News and MSNBC, or offer neither. 

But after waiting a few weeks, the manager has, of this writing, refused to add MSNBC. So, Fox News remains the only “hyper-partisan” channel choice for this health club in a deep blue county.

My conclusion is that one of two things is at play with LA Fitness’s refusal to add MSNBC as one option for members.  Either they have far-right wing leadership committed to evangelizing dangerous right wing drivel to their captive audience, or they just don’t give a shit about customer feedback and service. 

Whatever their motivations, their decision is shameful. And I do not suffer in silence.

Unvaccinated Athletes Are “Team First?”

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Two of the things that are most celebrated about our elite athlete heroes are “always puts team first” and “always respects the fans.”  How often have we heard such gushing clichés in sports journalism and chatter?  It seems nothing is more celebrated and revered than proving loyalty to fans and team.

Yet when it comes to COVID-19 vaccinations, a small but significant group of NFL players are refusing to say whether they’re vaccinated, which presumably means that most of them are not vaccinated. 

Three of the most important members of the Minnesota Vikings fall into that category — quarterback Kirk Cousins, wide receiver Adam Thielen, and safety Harrison Smith.  These are not just any players.  This is the Vikings’ highest paid player, their beloved over-achieving homie, and their longest serving player who has been selected for five Pro Bowls.

Last September, when asked about COVID-19, Cousins was cavalier about a disease that has killed an estimated 3 million people worldwide.  Here is what Cousins told podcaster Kyle Brandt, when Brandt asked an impressively difficult to evade question: “On a spectrum of one – masks are stupid and you’re all a bunch of lemmings – and ten is ‘I’m not leaving my master bathroom for the next 10 years. Where do you land?”

“I’m not going to call anybody stupid for the trouble it could get me in,” Cousins responded. “But I’m about a .0001.”


In the local sports news coverage and talk I’m consuming, I’m mostly hearing defense of athletes making the decision to forgo getting vaccinations, which have proven remarkably safe and effective after over 3 billion doses worldwide. I’m paraphrasing, but I’m hearing a lot of this kind of thing from fans, analysts, and journalists about unvaccinated NFL players, even from people who have vaccinated themselves:

“It’s their body, so how dare anyone question their personal decision!” 

“They’re young and in prime condition, so I competely understand why they wouldn’t bother.” 

“How can the NFL suits punish them for their personal or religious decision?” 

Explanatory Note: The alleged “punishment” is that the NFL has some pretty basic public health restrictions for unvaccinated players.  As I understand them, they can’t eat with the rest of the vaccinated team, don’t have as much freedom to be in crowds when traveling, need to wear masks in many situations, and can be fined for violating the public health protocols.  Quite responsibly, the NFL is trying to limit spread from these unvaccinated players, but many players and fans view this as punishment.


Team First?

But hold on, what about that all-important “always puts team first” standard that we constantly spotlight when it comes to our pedestaled athletes? 

To be clear, putting yourself at risk of getting sick or quarantined means putting yourself at risk of not being there for your team. Would we be forgiving if an athlete insisted on engaging in other types o risky behaviors that threatens their ability to be present for their teammates at practices or game day, such as bull-riding, motor cross racing, free solo climbing, or chronic binge-drinking?

And remember, this is an infectious disease that often spreads asymptomatically, unbeknownst to the spreader.  So when tough talkin’ Kirk “If I Die, I Die” Cousins risks infection, remember that means that he also is selfishly putting unvaccinated teammates at significant risk.  If any of those players miss a game or games, or get harmed, it will very likely hurt their team. If all three of them miss games, the problem for the team could quickly become catastrophic.

So much for “team first.”



Respecting The Fans?

And then what about that “always respects the fans” standard.  Even if the athlete is ignorant enough to feel safe being unvaccinated, what about the tens of thousands of adoring fans per week with whom they are sharing the buildings?  You know, the elated fans, many with their risk-regulating amygdala pickled, desperate to get as close to them as possible? You know, the people who make your extravagant salary and lifestyle possible? Is knowingly putting them at risk of being maimed or killed by the deadliest virus in a century really “respecting the fans?”

“Yeah, but players shouldn’t be forced to be vaccinated,” say the athlete worshipping journalists, analysts, and fans.  I hear this one a lot. That goes without saying. It’s a “straw man,” an extreme argument that virtually no one is making, but is trotted out because it’s easy and popular to knock down.

But I’m not talking about mandating vaccinations, and neither is anybody at the NFL or Centers for Disease Control (CDC). I’m just talking about doing the right thing for yourself, your loved ones, your community, your team, and your fans.

I don’t care how well they play this year, I don’t want to hear any more of the cliches about these unvaccinated athletes always putting their team and fans first.  Because right now, we’re seeing what they’re really made of.  Their selfish actions are speaking much more loudly than their sports cliché words.

Sick of politicians? Take ’em to “court”

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Guest post by Noel Holston

If it please the court of public opinion, I’d like to advocate on behalf of The Advocates, a TV series whose time has come. Again.

For those too young to remember and for those who never caught an installment, The Advocates was a co-production of Boston’s WGBH and Los Angeles’ KCET that aired weekly on public TV from 1969 through 1974. It was revived as a bi-weekly for most of 1978 and ’79.

 Image by Venita Oberholster from Pixabay

The Advocates was vastly more entertaining and enlightening than the so-called “debates” among Presidential contenders on television then or now. Questions were harder to evade. The show was promoted as “PBS Fight of the Week.” The fisticuffs were all verbal, but the show could pack a wallop. More than one intellectual hotshot left the arena with his or her ego badly bruised.

The format, created by Harvard Law professor Roger Fisher, ingeniously recast debate as mock trial, with “attorneys” for the opposing sides of a question presenting expert witnesses to help make his or her case. At its best, it was as much fun to watch as a courtroom sequence on Boston Legal — or a WWE cage match.

You can see vintage installments via Open Vault: https://openvault.wgbh.org/collections/advocates/full-program-video

The series attracted top-tier participants. For instance, when the Equal Rights Amendment was on the show’s docket, the lead counsel in favor of passage was Eleanor Smeal, then president of the National Organization of Women, while the opposition arguments were framed by Phyllis Schlafly, the formidable head of Stop ERA. Political heavyweights such as Adlai Stevenson and Hubert Humphrey popped up as guest witnesses during the run of the show.
The Advocates never won an Emmy, perhaps because there was no category it quite fit. It did win a George Foster Peabody Award after its first season on what was then still the National Educational Television Network, the forerunner of PBS.

The Peabody board’s citation lauded its “bold, invigorating debates of crucial issues” grounded in the producers’ belief “that in a courtroom atmosphere such controversial problems as abortion, smog versus the auto, the use of marijuana, or the danger of offshore drilling could be dramatized and reasonably, if hotly, discussed.”

Most of the hot-button issues the Peabody judges mentioned have, if anything, gained a few degrees Fahrenheit with the passing years. The format would work today on issues ranging from the credibility of climate-change science to the smartest way to deal with Iran or Russia. The Advocates could “try” the realities and misconceptions of Covid vaccinations, election fraud, Black Lives Matter, immigration, even the overall success or failure of the current President’s administration.

What’s more, the potential for public participation in The Advocates is much greater now than it was when it last aired some 40 years ago. We’re well into the age of instant communication, live coverage of high-profile trials and non-stop punditry. If the viewers can cast votes by phone for their favorites on American Idol, why not use a similar phone-in system get an indication of how citizens view various issues and controversies before and after they’ve watched courtroom-style testimony and cross-examination?

Who knows? Maybe the revenues from the phone calls could be applied to election costs or federal deficit reduction.

So, in summation, somebody in the public television system or, if they’re too strapped for funds, somebody at a cable news network should revive The Advocates. It was born in the late 1960s, a time of great polarization and upheaval in America. Watch video of the January 6 assault on the U.S. House of Representatives and tell me a revival is not overdue.

Note: Noel Holston is a freelance writer who lives in Athens, Georgia. He’s a contributing essayist to Medium.com, TVWorthWatching.com, and other websites. He previously wrote about television and radio at Newsday (200-2005) and, as a crosstown counterpart to the Pioneer Press’s Brian Lambert, at the Star Tribune  (1986-2000).  He’s the author of “Life After Deaf: My Misadventures in Hearing Loss and Recovery,” by Skyhorse.

Woke Coke

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Guest post by Noel Holston

Coca-Cola is as much a part of my Southern upbringing as Elvis, SEC football, pecan pie, possum grapes, and grits.

When I was growing up, it was synonymous with soda pop itself. We talked going to get a Coke even when what we actually pulled out of the cooler was a root beer or an Orange Crush.

But if you’ve watched any sponsored TV lately, especially around evening news time, you know that Coca-Cola is a terrible company, its signature product warranting a skull-and-crossbones label.  

Or so says Consumers’ Research, an outfit that you should not confuse with Consumer Reports, although they probably don’t mind if you do. It’s a right-wing advocacy group that’s been buying TV spots all over the country, including in Georgia, Coca-Cola’s home state, to run some of the nastiest attack ads I’ve ever seen. The targets also include Nike and American Airlines.

The anti-Coke spot accuses the company of attempting to distract people from its “dismal” business failures, kissing up to repressive regimes and selling to teenagers “despite the obesity crisis.”

The words “Stop poisoning our children” appear on screen at the end.

The funny thing about the appearance of these spots is that Coca-Cola has been around since 1886. While pretty much everybody now knows that drinking sugary beverages – not just Coke but Pepsi, Yoo-hoo, 7 Up, even homemade sweet tea – can lead to cavities and diabetes, it only recently started to infuriate the watchdogs at Consumers’ Research.

That’s because what actually annoys them isn’t overweight teenagers or the wellbeing of foreign workers but, rather, that Coke is, in their view, woke.

They’re out to get for Coca-Cola because the brand’s CEO, James Quincey, supposedly lied about Georgia’s new voting laws. Quincey denounced the new measures as restrictive and regressive.  Never mind that his assessment is shared by both of Georgia’s new U.S. Senators, most election experts and millions of Georgia voters. To Consumers’ Research and Trumpist megaphones like Fox News and Breitbart, it’s a “falsehood” that must be challenged just like that lie that Joe Biden won the Presidency fair and square.

Consumers’ Research is thus spending a bundle to smear one of the most philanthropically generous companies in the world, an iconic Georgia business that donates money to everything from the American Red Cross to the Peabody Awards to youth baseball teams.

It’s a dirty, deceitful campaign that demonstrates just how shameless the Trumpist Right remains.  Nothing is sacred to these guys but their god Don.

If Gerber or Marie Callender were to speak out against state laws that in application make it more difficult for poor Americans and minorities to vote, we’d probably be seeing spots attacking motherhood and apple pie.

I’m not blind. Coca-Cola is a huge international corporation, no more without sin than Royal Dutch Shell or Monsanto. I know its signature product isn’t particularly good for my teeth or my blood sugar. Still, I drink a bottle or can once in a while, partly because we have a history, partly because I still like the taste of it. And I plan to drink them more often until Consumers’ Research stops running those spots and lying about disingenuous laws drafted to address nonexistent voter fraud.

I’d also like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony.

That used to mean I was idealistic, kindhearted, even Christian. Now I guess it just means I’ve drunk the Woke-a-Cola.

Note: Noel Holston is a freelance writer who lives in Athens, Georgia. He’s a contributing essayist to Medium.com, TVWorthWatching.com, and other websites. He previously wrote about television and radio at Newsday (200-2005) and, as a crosstown counterpart to the Pioneer Press’s Brian Lambert, at the Star Tribune  (1986-2000).  He’s the author of “Life After Deaf: My Misadventures in Hearing Loss and Recovery,” by Skyhorse.

For Vaccine Holdouts, A Different Kind of Messaging Is Needed By Late Summer

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Currently, COVID-19 vaccine demand exceeds supply, so the challenges public health officials face are mainly logistical in nature.  They’re doing an admirable job with those tasks, with the rate of vaccination doubling since Biden’s inauguration.

But the nature of their challenge is about to quickly change.  But before long, vaccine supply will start to exceed demand.  Then the public health leaders’ challenges will be more about persuasion than logistics. 

Here’s hoping public health officials are prepared for that very different kind of challenge.  Very soon, they must make a swift and dramatic pivot.

The people who are getting vaccinated now are obviously the “low-hanging fruit.”  They’re motivated. They’re much more likely to try to cut in line than avoid the line.  Little to no persuasion was necessary for them. 

But persuading the “high-hanging fruit,” those skeptical about the vaccines, will be necessary to get to the 70% to 90% vaccination rate that experts tell us will give society the holy grail, “herd immunity.”  That won’t be easy.

Up until now, public health officials like Dr. Anthony Fauci have only needed to communicate public health facts.  For most of us, that worked.

But by now, the fence-sitters have repeatedly heard the Fauci facts and they have stayed on the fence.  At this stage, it’s illogical to think that a new surge of epidemiological fact-sharing is going to suddenly convince holdouts to buck up and get their Fauci Ouchy.

Public health officials should look to what has been successful in other public health campaigns.  I’m talking about bite-sized, unvarnished, and visually-driven ads. These are TV, radio, online, social media, and outdoor ads that make appeals to emotions, including fear.  In terms of messaging, vaccination holdouts need shaking, not hugging.  They need a scare, not a seminar.

After all, smoking rates didn’t decrease dramatically because of inspirational Surgeon General fact sheets. They finally decreased as smokers and their loved ones saw raw emotional ads that portrayed the living hell associated with tobacco-related illnesses.  

Similarly, our parents didn’t all start wearing seat belts after pouring over safety studies or having a spontaneous fit of conscience.  Instead, many finally started to buckle up because they couldn’t stop daydreaming about difficult-to-watch ads like this.

Finally, the incidence of drunk driving didn’t decrease because we all were moved by well-crafted CDC spreadsheets.  Many of us changed our ways because of searing images of victims’ and perpetrators’ lives being destroyed in the blink of an eye.

These campaigns offered brutal testimonials and images that cut through the information clutter of modern life and stuck in our memories in a way the epidemiological sermons couldn’t. 

And they worked.  They changed individual behaviors, and, just as importantly, they fueled passage of laws and policies that further changed behaviors.

In my career, I’ve sat through many focus groups reviewing these kinds of ads. I can assure you, almost everyone hates seeing these ads, because they make us feel horrible. Focus group participants will inevitably tell you that such ads are completely ineffective for them.

Yet whenever and wherever these kinds of ads run, behaviors change.   

Facing the worst pandemic in a century, we can’t treat this final crucial stage of pandemic management like a popularity contest.  We have to do what works, not what is popular.

By late summer and early fall, we will need public health messaging campaigns that show vaccine fence-sitters what it feels like to slowly suffocate to death from COVID.  They need to feel what it would be like to live with chronic COVID long-hauler conditions.  They need to feel what it would be like to inadvertently infect and kill someone. 

We need to see ads that make us feel these things in our guts, because adding another data point in our brains isn’t going to be sufficient.

These are the kinds of jarring emotional images that will push at least some vaccination fence-sitters out of the comfort zone that is preventing them acting.  These are the kinds of portrayals that will show them that the downsides of vaccinations – scheduling hassles, needles, sore arms, short-term aches and fevers – pale in comparison to the downsides of failing to vaccinate.

Surprisingly, the use of jarring imagery is still a matter of debate in public health circles. To their credit, public health decision makers tend to be nurturers and fact-driven.  Therefore, many still make the mistake of assuming that everyone is like them, and therefore can be persuaded by messages that inspire, reassure, and educate.  They’re right about many people, but not all people. 

The impressive achievements from the tobacco control, seatbelt, and drunk driving campaigns, among many others, tell the tale.  For the group of Americans who still aren’t sure about whether they want a miraculous life-saving vaccine, facts and inspirational messages alone just aren’t going to cut it.  For people who are still holding out in late summer, it’s time to get real.

Five Reasons To Never, Ever Vote For the MyPillow Guy

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Mike Lindell, the “MyPillow Guy,” seems to be the front-runner to become Minnesota Republicans’ nominee for Governor in the 2022 election.  This seems like a big joke to many, but we need to take it very seriously.

Lindell has many advantages that other GOP gubernatorial candidates lack — minor celebrity, statewide name recognition, tons of personal money, a compelling personal story of redemption, the wink and a nod endorsement of Minnesota GOP Chair Jennifer Carnahan, and most importantly, a likely Trump endorsement.

In a GOP primary, where the most slavishly Trumpy Trumpists rise to the top, Lindell can point out that he not only supports Trump, he practically deifies him.  Take his speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC):

“As I stand before you today, I see the greatest president in history. Of course he is. He was chosen by God. God answered our prayers, our millions of prayers, and gave us grace, and a miracle happened on Nov. 8, 2016. We were given a second chance and time granted to get our country back on track with our conservative values and getting people saved in Jesus’s name.”

Top that, Paul Gazelka, Pete Stauber, Scott Jensen, Chad Greenway, and Matt Birk.
To any swing voters paying close attention, it’s obvious that electing Lindell governor would be a disaster. But are they paying attention? I don’t want to take it for granted that Minnesotans won’t elect a narcissistic minor celebrity.  See Jesse Ventura in 1998 and Donald Trump in 2016.

So here are five important reasons to work like hell to keep Lindell out of power.

Crooked Businessman.  The MyPillow company Lindell founded has earned a humiliating “F” grade from the Better Business Bureau due to the number of consumer complaints it has received.

He also was forced to pay a $1 million lawsuit settle for making false medical claims about his pillows.  It turns out that pillows cannot cure insomnia, sleep apnea and fibromyalgia.

Over his career, Lindell has shown himself to be a rich, fast-talking, serial-lying, TV-empowered con man running a shady business. Sound familiar?

Admitted Stalker.  Mike Lindell has been divorced twice, and violated a restraining order obtained by a girlfriend who accused him of physically abusing her. This is how Jim Heath TV describes those events:

Lindell was divorced for the first time by 2008, and was arrested in January of that year on suspicion of domestic assault.

The woman he was dating claimed he had punched and kicked her — even hitting her with “a four-foot wooden dowel,” according to documents.

Lindell denied the allegations, but an order of protection was still issued in the case.

He was arrested two months later for violating the order by allegedly taking the woman’s car.

He ultimately pleaded guilty to the order of protection violation.

Keep in mind the old adage: “Character is who you are when no one is looking.”

Dangerous Quack. You know those guys who crawl out from under rocks to con desperate people whose families are in crisis? Yeah, he’s that guy.

At a time when Americans were desperate for good science-based advice about how to survive the deadly Covid-19 pandemic, Lindell publicly promoted the plant extract oleandrin as “the miracle of all time.”

Meanwhile, scientists stress that there is no scientific evidence supporting these claims, and that oleandrin is poisonous even at very low doses.

Oh and by the way, Lindell just happens to have a financial and governing stake in a company that makes oleandrin, Phoenix Biotechnology.

This chapter tells us a lot about how Lindell would be as a governor. His instincts are to ignore science and put profits over people.

Murderer Protector.  Lindell shamelessly donated bail money to spring accused murderer Kyle Rittenhouse from jail.  Kenosha, Wisconsin law enforcement officials have charged the young white male of the murder of two Wisconsinites who were peacefully calling for an end to police brutality.

Lindell later claimed he didn’t intend his donation to help Rittenhouse with bail, but he refused to seek the return of his donation. As with Trump, pay attention to what Lindell does, not what he says.

Keep in mind, Lindell didn’t come to the defense of George Floyd, or the police officers who were bloodied and killed at the U.S. Capitol by pro-Trump insurrectionists. But he rushed to the defense of someone murdering peaceful Americans who were speaking out for justice for black people. That speaks volumes.

Inciter of Insurrection.  After more than 70-days of bipartisan local, state and federal officials confirming 2020 presidential election results through legally sanctioned counts, audits, recounts, re-recounts, certifications, and court reviews, Lindell continues to publicly pedal the baseless, dangerous lie that Biden’s 7 million vote, 74 elector margin is somehow invalid. For good measure, he also claimed Senator Tina Smith’s 5-point victory over Jason Lewis was actually a loss. 

With no supporting evidence, and several court decisions tossing out the allegations, Lidell continues to falsely allege that voting machine companies Smartmatic and Dominion Voting Systems had conspired with foreign powers to rig voting machines to steal the election from Trump. As a result, Twitter has permanently banned Lindell and his company MyPillow, because they have seen that he is unable or unwilling to tell the truth, and is inciting violent attacks against democracy. 

Speaking of inciting violence, Lindell attended Trump’s infamous insurrection-inciting rally, which led to Trump’s second impeachment.  After supporting the incitement, Lindell aggressively pushed false claims that the murder and mayhem at the Capitol was done by Antifa members, instead of by Trump-supporting white supremacists and militia members. 

Weeks later, none of the arrested insurrectionists have been found to be associated with Antifa, or any other left-wing group.  

As Lindell’s infomercials say, “but wait, there’s more!”

Lindell was photographed entering a White House meeting  with a list of talking points that included encouraging President Trump to impose martial law to help Trump overturn the will of the people in the 2020 presidential election. Martial law!

So while we’re yucking it up at the cute SNL skit, remember that this guy isn’t just a harmless kitschy-cute infomercial huckster.  He’s a consumer-victimizing, protection order-violating, science-denying, serial-lying, insurrection-inciting, and martial law-advocating crackpot.

A Potential Silver Lining In the Dark Cloud That Is Trump’s Vaccine Rollout

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It’s painfully obvious that former President Trump badly screwed up the parts of the Covid-19 vaccine initiative that he actually controlled.  While he obviously wasn’t equipped to be in the lab developing vaccines quickly, he was in a position to order the right number of doses, develop a plan for getting the vaccine to at least 70 percent of us, and marshal resources to implement the plan.

He botched that assignment, and that has put a very dark cloud over President Biden, who needs a relatively swift end to the pandemic in order to have any hope of having a successful presidency.

But maybe there is a bit of a silver lining in that dark cloud–highly visible consumer demand created by the shortage.

As all good Adam Smith fanboys know, the law of supply and demand tells us that low supply will create high demand for a product.  In a nation with a sizable slice of vaccine doubters, creating more demand for the Covid-19 vaccine will be critically important. 

It’s no secret that shortages, or perceptions of shortages, are powerful tools for marketers.  For instance, the makers of Teddy Ruxpin and Nintendo Wii produced too few products, perhaps intentionally, and that generated tremendous consumer demand.  As a result of the shortage, those companies benefited from months of millions of dollars worth of free new media coverage of consumers waiting in line.  Sales ultimately surged, as consumers apparently thought to themselves, “I mean, if all of them want it so badly, I must want it too!”

This happens all the time in capitalistic economies. Shortages increases consumer demand.  That’s also why so many internet marketers go to great lengths to tell us how few of their products remain available.  It’s why the Starbuck’s Unicorn Cappuccino and McDonalds’ McRib sandwich are only available for “a limited time only.” 

Based on those examples and many others, all of this news and social media coverage about Americans fretting about vaccine shortages and bragging about getting their vaccine before the rest of us may help convince some number of Americans that they want this product as well. 

“I mean, if all of them want it so badly, I must want it too?”

And indeed, newer surveys are showing that more early skeptics are getting interested in getting vaccinated.  In September 2020, when Trump was still in charge, and wildly exaggerating everything about his Covid response, the number of Americans saying they would definitely get vaccinated was only about 51%.  This posed a huge challenge, because  epidemiologists tell us we need about 70% to get the Fauchi Ouchy in order to achieve the necessary herd immunity. 

By December, with Biden starting to take the reins and positive test results rolling in, the number had grown to 61%. That’s important progress.

But how do we get from 61% to 70%? The news media and social media obsession with the vaccine shortage, and Americans doing victory dances on their social media feeds after getting vaccinated, may do for Fauci what the Wii shortage did for Nintendo.

To be clear, there will be lethal implications of Trump’s bumbling of the vaccination distribution plan.  A delay of a month or two will mean many Americans will needlessly get sick and die. That’s tragic and inexcusable.

But as we continue to mop up Trump-generated calamities, we have to take the good news wherever we can find it.  And maybe this current vaccine shortage will help convince enough of the remaining vaccine fence-sitters to join the herd.

BLM and Capitol Rioting Not Equivalent

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I strongly oppose looting, rioting, and vandalizing at protests. I often share the frustration that drives a small minority of protesters to destroy during emotional protests. But I unequivocally oppose it, because it’s illegal, it usually victimizes innocent people, and it hurts the cause. 

Because an overwhelming majority of Americans share that sentiment, conservatives work overtime to falsely paint the left as being somehow pro-rioting.  The latest example of this can be found throughout social media and political discourse. It goes something like this: “At least the Capitol protesters didn’t burn and loot, like the Black Lives Matters (BLM) and Antifa. Why are you outraged about the Capitol protesters but weren’t outraged about BLM looters?” 

Let’s dissect that piece of false equivalency, a logical fallacy where two very unequal things are falsely implied to be the same, or of equal magnitude. What happened at the U.S. Capitol building is qualitatively different than what happened at a relatively small number of the BLM protests.

Trump’s Inciting v. Biden’s Condemning.  First, President Trump incited the Capitol assault.  That conclusion is shared by both Democrats and Republicans, including members of his Administration. Then, after the violent insurrection happened, and the nation and world were watching in horror, Trump hit the airwaves to say of the Trump-supporting violent rioters: 

“We love you. You’re very special… I know how you feel.” 

Trump embraced and celebrated his followers’ violent insurrection.

In sharp contrast, President-elect Biden never called for looting. When it happened, he immediately and repeatedly condemned it, and called for protesters committing crimes to be prosecuted.

“Protesting such brutality is right and necessary. It’s an utterly American response. But burning down communities and needless destruction is not. Violence that endangers lives is not. Violence that guts and shutters businesses that serve the community is not.”

Supporters of Trump have no basis for criticizing supporters of Biden on this issue. None. Biden has clearly denounced violence and destruction at protests, while Trump has cheered it.

Just Cause v. False Cause.  It’s also important to recognize that Black Lives Matter looters had true and justifiable reasons to be filled with raged when they took to destruction in the heat of the moment.  They had just witnessed a clear video of a black man needlessly and casually murdered slowly by an arrogant white police officer. They had lived their whole lives in a country where people of color are disproportionately victimized by police officers, and where police officers are almost never held accountable for their brutal crimes.  

Martin Luther King, Jr. opposed rioting, but he explained it to white people who can’t know what it’s like to be black in America:

“…it is not enough for me to stand before you tonight and condemn riots. It would be morally irresponsible for me to do that without, at the same time, condemning the contingent, intolerable conditions that exist in our society. These conditions are the things that cause individuals to feel that they have no other alternative than to engage in violent rebellions to get attention. And I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice and humanity.”

In stark contrast, the Capitol insurrectionists had no evidence of election fraud.  During dozens of counts, audits, recounts, re-recounts, certification reviews, and lawsuits, often overseen by Republicans or Republican-appointed officials, no evidence of fraud was produced by Trump’s team or found by election officials.  Those reviews, conducted over a long 64-day period, corroborated the finding of the Trump-appointed head of election security, who found that the 2020 election was the most secure in history.

Those reviews found that Joe Biden won by 7 million votes and 74 electors, the largest margin for a challenger since 1932, when Franklin Roosevelt defeated Herbert Hoover.

In other words, the BLM riots were sparked by serial murder and denial of justice, while the Capitol insurrection was driven by a well-proven lie. 

Destroying Property v. Destroying Democracy.  Finally, looters at BLM marches destroyed property, while Capitol looters were trying to destroy the most meaningful and valuable thing in America — democracy.   Ignoring Republican-overseen counts, audits, recounts, re-recounts, certifications, and lawsuits finding the 2020 presidential election to be free and fair, the Capitol insurrectionists were trying to silence the voices of 81 million Americans, and effectively end American democracy.  They were attempting a traitorous coup against America.

Again, I strongly denounce looting, rioting and vandalizing at protests.  But this must be fully understood: Torching property in the name of a proven injustice is infinitely less harmful to the common good than torching democracy in the name of a proven lie.