Alex Berenson still thinks The Atlantic was wrong about Georgia's Experiment in Human Sacrifice

You can still read Alex Berenson, at Substack, as I do. He continues to be an important source for stories our media continues to ignore (censor) because they don't fit the narrative. But sometimes the takes can be odd.

Alex today still thinks the Georgia story way back when was a bad covid take, and that Germany's troubles presently somehow invalidate The Atlantic's positive opinion on the record of Europe's biggest country outside of Russia.

Neither point is defensible.

The US State of Georgia today ranks 10th worst in the US for deaths per million of its population, at 2961/m. Mississippi is our very worst, at 3511/m. In between there, there are red and blue states, including New Jersey and New York.

But Germany today is at 1361/m. Worst place in the world Peru by contrast is at 6336/m.

Germany's done pretty damn well considering it has a population of 83 million compared with Georgia's paltry <10 million.

The situation in Georgia to date, in fact, is 118% worse than in Germany. And if Georgia were a country, it would be ranked in the top 15 worst performers in the world today for deaths per million.

I think Alex is letting animus cloud his judgment. Animus certainly for The Atlantic, but perhaps also for Germany.

Gee, why would that be?

Georgia's done a very poor job. Not as poor as New Jersey and New York, and not poor enough by comparison with them to be singled out the way they were. "Stupid hicks" elitism, right? On that we agree. But Germany's done remarkably well, and we should care enough to understand why.

But Alex is too busy to go into that right now. The drive-by-shooting of the "little homily on the brilliance of Germany’s Covid response" will have to do for now.

Juries decide if someone murdered somebody, not Rush Limbaugh: He might as well be a member of the mainstream media

Rush's rush to prejudge this case and using all this inflammatory language to boot was simply outrageous and would be at any time, but especially while rioters and looters were attempting to burn down the country. He's no conservative, no friend of law and order, no friend of the police. He's a coward who didn't stand up for what's right at a time it was needed most.

The police arrest transcript is out and it shows that the attending officers had a thoroughgoing and reasonable belief from beginning to end that Floyd was resisting arrest under the influence of drugs, that police had called for an ambulance immediately after Floyd hurt himself and that Floyd was bleeding from the mouth long before Chauvin ever arrived and put him on the ground, that Floyd blamed his supposed breathing difficulties on having had COVID when asked directly if he were under the influence of drugs, and that Floyd's complaints about being unable to breathe persisted throughout the encounter which reasonably led police to believe their actions had had nothing to do with his breathing complaints and wouldn't.

The autopsy proved Floyd was under the influence, had in fact had COVID, and did not die of asphyxiation but of cardiac arrest. The police transcript says he crashed in the ambulance and did not die on the pavement.

George Floyd's death was an accident, but mostly of George Floyd's own making, beginning with taking drugs, hanging out with a woman but not his wife and the mother of his children, and ending with possession of multiple counterfeit bills and passing one off as legit.

June 1:

"And poor George Floyd, it’s been said that he lost his life. He didn’t lose his life. It was taken from him. He was murdered for no possible explicable, justifiable reason. It was just sickening, sickening to watch, sickening to see. And you look at the face of the cop involved in the video and the three who stood around and weren’t doing anything. And you just wonder, how stupid can you be..."

June 2: 

"None of this is something happens and these people see it and they get mad and take to the streets. They are waiting. They are programmed. They are waiting for the call to action.It’s not that George Floyd was murdered; it’s that somebody was at the hands of a cop, and that’s the go signal". 

June 2:

"George Floyd died in a blue city. He died in a deep blue city, in a deep blue state. He died in a place where there shouldn’t be any police brutality because the Democrats are not gonna permit it. The Democrats are gonna fix it. The Democrats are gonna make sure it doesn’t happen.And yet George Floyd was murdered in a deep blue state, in a deep blue city, and somehow this is because of systemic racism and white supremacy brought to you by — dadelut, dadelut, dadelut — Donald Trump?"

June 4:

"Coronavirus and the George Floyd Murder:

"What the cops did was obscene. It was. Look, I understand anybody repulsed by that. I was not just repulsed. I was livid. It was so damn stupid. It was mean. Every potential negative character trait that you could associate with it, it was."

June 5:

"But the point is that the Democrat Party, as it is constituted and as it is functioning today, all of this that’s happening that’s in relationship to the George Floyd murder, it’s all a failure. The fact that George Floyd was murdered is a testament to the failure of liberal Democrat politics. Where did it happen?"

Salena Zito thinks John James could beat Debbie Stabenow in Michigan

"With a little flow of cash and some borrowed time, he could be this year’s Larry Hogan — the Republican in a blue state no one was watching who got swept up in a wave in Maryland to win the governor’s office in 2014."

Read about it, here.

Polling in Wisconsin was the poster boy for polling failure in 2016

From the story here:

There were no surveys released this year from Wisconsin that showed Trump with a lead. 

Clinton held a 6.5 point lead in the Badger State heading into Election Day, and the state was not even discussed as on par with Michigan or Pennsylvania as a potential blue state pick-up for Trump.

Trump’s victory in Wisconsin — a state that has not gone for the GOP nominee since 1984 — helped him seal the deal.

In Michigan and Pennsylvania, deep blue states the GOP candidate has not won in decades, polls showed the race tightening in the home stretch, but only one poll, from Trafalgar Group, showed Trump with the lead.

Blue state Republicans contribute a majority of convention delegates but only 37% of the primary vote

Which is why Republican presidential nominees tend to be more moderate than rank and file Republicans.

From the story here:

"Blue-state Republicans have already propelled moderates in the 2016 money chase. According to Federal Election Commission filings, donors in the 18 states (plus Washington, D.C.) that have voted Democratic in every presidential election since 1992 have accounted for 45 percent of Rubio’s total itemized contributions, 45 percent of Bush’s, 53 percent of Fiorina’s and 85 percent of Chris Christie’s. By contrast, they’ve provided just 20 percent of Cruz’s contributions and 36 percent of Carson’s. For comparison, blue-state Republicans cast just 37 percent of all votes in the 2012 GOP primaries. But their real mojo lurks in the delegate chase. ... there are 1,247 delegates at stake in Obama-won states, compared with just 1,166 in Romney states."

The Color of Debt is BLUE, Not Red

But you already knew that.

You can see it in pictures at the original here, with lots of useful links, in Neil Weinberg's "Political Litmus Test: Bluest States Spilling The Most Red Ink," where he asks

Want to know which states are in the worst financial condition? One telling indicator that might not immediately come to mind is whether most of its citizens identify themselves as Democrats.

The five states in the worst financial condition--Illinois, New York, Connecticut, California and New Jersey--are all among the bluest of blue states. The five most fiscally fit states are more of a mix. Three--Utah, Nebraska and Texas--boast Republican majorities and two--New Hampshire and Virginia--skew Democratic. ...

Why do Democratic states appear to be struggling more than Republican ones? It comes down to stronger unions and a larger appetite for public programs, according to Kent Redfield, professor emeritus of political studies and public affairs at the University of Illinois' Center for State Policy and Leadership. ...

Of the 10 states in the worst financial condition, eight are among a total of 23 defined by Gallup as "solidly Democratic," meaning the Democrats enjoy an advantage of 10 percentage points or greater in party affiliation. These states include the ones listed above as making up the bottom five, plus Massachusetts, Ohio and Wisconsin.

There's much more at the link.