Firehose #164: A History of Violence

Also: A controversial podcast exchange!

History, violence, political conflict, free speech, war. These seem to be the themes we’re doomed to dwell on, so let’s just dive right in.

* As predicted in Firehose #163, the death of Assata Shakur has been a magnet for political and mediatic double standards. Exploring those this past week on The Moynihan Report was author, community-developer, and 1619 Project foe Bob Woodson:

* Alert readers will remember that after Luigi Mangione’s murder of Brian Thompson, listener and public-opinion researcher Karen Cyphers checked in with some grim survey data about how many Americans (well, Floridians, anyway) believe in ends-justify-the-means violence. Well, Cyphers put in another Florida Man/Woman poll after the Charlie Kirk assassination, and the results ain’t great, either! To wit:

• 24% believe a person’s actions in life or business can erase their inherent worth or render them deserving of violence. This includes 33% of those younger than 45 and 20% of those older.

• About the same portion, 26%, believe some vigilante killings are “justified” in order to “send a message” or stop what they consider to be the spread of vile ideas – with the age spread consistent with responses to the prior question.

• One in 8 (12%) said they felt gratification or relief upon hearing about Kirk’s murder, predictably divided sharply across partisan lines.

* Is my parental hometown of Portland, Oregon, a “War ravaged” “NEVER-ENDING DISASTER” besieged by “domestic terrorists” who can only be stopped by federal military troops? That’s what President Donald Trump said and acted upon at the beginning of October. Being the worrywart over political violence that I am, The Reason Roundtable last Monday poked me for a reaction. Here’s the edited/enhance version:

Since then, 200 Oregon National Guard troops were deployed, the scraggly daily protests swelled to match, there were some made-for-the-TV micro-scuffles, counter-protesters arrived on the scene with American flags and Charlie Kirk shirts, there was a little tear gas spilled here and there (including in Nancy Rommelmann’s eyeballs), then on Saturday U.S. District Court Judge Karin Immergut issued a temporary restraining order telling Trump to get bent. “This is a nation of constitutional law, not martial law,” Immergut wrote. “The President’s determination [that federal troops were required to enforce federal law] was simply untethered to the facts.”

White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy and Homeland Security Advisor Stephen Miller responded with trademark restraint, characterizing the ruling as “Legal insurrection,” and claiming that “the deployment of troops is an absolute necessity to defend our personnel, our laws, our government, public order and the Republic itself.” Later, he clarified: “The issue before is now is very simple and clear. There is a large and growing movement of leftwing terrorism in this country. It is well organized and funded. And it is shielded by far-left Democrat judges, prosecutors and attorneys general. The only remedy is to use legitimate state power to dismantle terrorism and terror networks.” Trump then attempted to wiggle around the restraining order by calling California National Guard to come in.

* Speaking of Oregon, my colleague Zach Weissmueller reminds me anew of why I am grateful to work for Reason: intellectual/journalistic honesty in facing policy results that didn’t go as libertarians hoped. Please do check out “How Oregon’s Drug Experiment Backfired.”

* “For months,” the centristy pro-Israel podcaster wrote, “[the] audience has been asking me to have this conversation.” It was time to sit down with an elbow-throwing, right-of-center intervention-skeptic and culture warrior accused by many critics of playing footsie with (or at least choosing not to criticize) conspiratorial anti-Semites in or near Planet MAGA. And so it was that Coleman Hughes (veteran of Fifth Column episodes #121, #144, #181, #188, #201, #379, #412 & #442) butted heads with Dave Smith. FOR 300 MINUTES. The episode was recorded *before* the recent progress on finally ending the hostage crisis:

* As if on cue, here comes Moynihan with a Report episode titled “’Thank God for the Atomic Bomb,’” featuring World War II Pacific-campaign historian Richard B. Frank:

* Our first official Pivot to Video episode, #526 featuring Megyn Kelly, generated some notice. “‘Too F*cking Bad’: Megyn Kelly Rages Over Criticism of Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens Praise,” headlined Mediaite. “Megyn Kelly REFUSES To CONDEMN Owens, Tucker For Alleged ANTISEMITISM, CONSPIRACY THEORIES,” wrote the definitely-not-influenced-by-Trump’s-capitalization The Rising. More from Yashar Ali, the Pondering Politics podcast, and Isaac Shorr. Kmele talked about it on his Tangle podcast, Jonah Goldberg (#182) had thoughts on The Remnant (start at around 9:30), Noam Dworman posted a related thread about Tucker Carlson.

Prior to the interview, there were a couple of Candace Owens bits worth relaying. First is a receipts-laden post/podcast from Nancy Rommelmann (#79, Special Dispatch #27, S.D. #30, #198, #203, S.D. #34, S.D. #50, S.D. #64, S.D. #111) titled “The Sociopaths Among Us #2: Candace Owens: Unpacking the most masterful opportunist I’ve encountered and what she is willing to do (read: anything) to stay relevant.” Second is a clipped/edited Moynihan rant:

* Kelly on #526 accused not only me of “TDS,” but National Review legal analyst Andy McCarthy, particularly as it relates to the indictment of former FBI director James Comey. McCarthy’s relevant commentary/analysis this past week: “Trump Is Waging ‘Lawfare’—After Being Its Target Himself” (Wall Street Journal), “Indictment Intricacies” (The McCarthy Report podcast), and “With More Scrutiny, the Trump DOJ Indictment of Comey Gets Worse” (National Review).

Here’s a Reason Roundtable mini-clip of me TDS’ing whilst quoting Andy McCarthy:

* Comment of the Week comes from vintner extraordinaire Alex Kanzler:

Bohemian Grove is a wild place!

I grew up about 20 min away and tons of us local high school kids would work temp jobs there in summer when they staffed up for encampment.

These days I know camp is starting because the local skies fill up with PJs going in and out of our little commuter airport.

I was a valet car parker and it was always interesting slotting Porches between the barbed wire fences and redwood tree that dotted our “parking lot”.

At any rate: it’s basically just men’s-only glamping with the rich, powerful and talented. Toppest of top shelf food, booze and entertainment.

Yes, there is a lake with a big ass wooden owl statue thing, but the vibe is more summer camp than child sacrifice… and I don’t think they burn the thing down and rebuild it every year.

Then again, I was never past the parking lot after dark…

* Speaking of delicious alcoholic beverages consumed on air, there was some listener curiosity about the brown stuff we were quaffing with Megyn Kelly. Answer: The Macklowe. Serious top-shelfery.

Walkoff music is one of the many answers to the question, “What kind of Boomer/Gen X music shit are Welch and Moynihan texting & laughing & hi-fiving about in the wee small hours of an eventful week?”