I have no interest in self-serving spin to rewrite blatant journalistic malpractice via a book and full-court media blitz. The truth that really matters about four-plus years of media denial of the obvious insufficiencies of Joe Biden’s mental acuity can be easily summed up in just over a dozen easy-to-read words: “Corporate media didn’t miss the story. They actively worked to not see it…“

This active misuse of brain function to see everything only within the boundaries of the favored (but so very intellectually dishonest) cultivated narrative of each news cycle has been the dominant feature of the corporate media since (at least) the days leading up to the Republican National Convention in 2016. That spans an awful lot of purposeful journalistic malpractice. The fact that Tapper (and his co-author) have carved out a very narrowly scoped “mea culpa” around this one – albeit quite major – topic in order to attempt to carry on a laughable charade of professional respectability leaves so much that was “actively worked” to the contrary festering in the public domain.

As a test of this new calibration of supposedly reinvigorated journalistic integrity covering the span of the Biden administration that Tapper seems to want us to believe, I propose one easy to answer question of Jake to evaluate his ability to recognize and assess the available information and then honestly state the obvious. A wrong answer quickly provides sufficient reason to end any discussion around the excuses and blame-vectoring he has served up on his chosen book topic. That question is: “Did Derek Chauvin murder George Floyd?“

I suspect that will end the conversation.

*** *** ***

For easy reference regarding the answer to the question above that was fully knowable at this point five years ago and openly acknowledged by people possessing even small amounts of intellectual honesty by the end of 2023, here is a what was Tapper and his ilk “actively worked to not see” in this case:

Midnight in the Republic – Mock Justice and Judicial Shame (December 8, 2023)

I believe this belongs under my old “Midnight in the Republic” series***. So that is where it will go…

Madam Althouse directed us to the following passage earlier this week. It comes from an interview posted under the title Derek Chauvin Did Not Murder George Floyd. You should go read that link in its entirety but the facts in and around these 162 or so words spell out quite clearly just how intellectually bankrupt the American Left really is, how intellectually unserious our entire major media complex really is, and how fully corrupt and/or completely spineless the actors in our legal system are from top to bottom. Consider all of that as your digest the factual narrative provided here:

[JOHN MCWHORTER:] “…this is what’s important in the body cam footage, which we’ve never seen. George Floyd was saying “I can’t breathe” when he was standing up straight and just being coaxed to get into the car. What they were trying to do was take him somewhere to get treatment, because the drugs were severely addling his mind and he wouldn’t get in the car. And he starts saying, breathing air, standing up, “I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe,” when nobody is anywhere near his neck or anything else. George Floyd was extremely high on fentanyl and meth to an extent that could have killed him sitting in a chair. If you’re on fentanyl in particular, you get something called “wooden chest,” where you can’t breathe if you’ve got that much in you. That’s how high he was. Now, the issue is not the morality of him being high, but he was saying, “I can’t breathe” long before anybody had him on the ground.”

While that basic narrative is not news to those of us who were paying attention at the time, all of that was completely known/knowable shortly after the death of Floyd in May 2020. Did the domestic terrorist organizations that coordinated and executed the riots that followed know this factual narrative? If not, why not?

All of that was completely known/knowable when Chauvin was tried and convicted in March and April 2021. Was the jury informed of this factual narrative? If not, why not?

All of that was completely known/knowable when SCOTUS rejected Chauvin’s appeal “without comment or a recorded vote” in November 2023. That these known/knowable facts couldn’t even get a comment out of these worthless gasbags is telling. (And with this we see that the supreme judicial oversight for American justice isn’t worth a warm bucket of piss. But I digress.)

None of this is meant to provide the slightest commentary on the prior history or overall character of Derek Chauvin…other than to further quote Mr. McWhorter: “Derek Chauvin didn’t kill that man.” Yet he resides in prison and extreme peril because of a mockery of justice that is still allowed to stand.

This does, however, cast a whole lot of shade on the character of the American Left, the major American media complex, and the American legal system. The Republic and the American Liberties it was intended to guarantee are little more than talking point fictions under the system as it exists today.

Good luck when the system comes for you.

(Final unsolicited advice: Breath your air in a red county in a red state at all times.)

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FOOTNOTES

*** While I realize not all the links to the Midnight in the Republic series will be available, see also Volume 1, Volume 2, Volume 3, Volume 4, Volume 5, Volume 6, Volume 7,  Volume 8, Volume 9, Volume 10 , Volume 11 and Volume 12. As a bonus post to the series, see also Midnight in the Republic, A Dystopian Interlude)