612 Comments

Glenn, living in what seems to be a ground zero for this, southeast Wisconsin, I know all too well the hypocrisy. You had the Rittenhouse 'episode' and the outright lying about it less than an hour drive from where I live, the Waukesha Parade massacre less than half an hour away, in the same county no less, and the Madison firebombing which you mentioned that is under two hours away.

Although not shootings, the BLM nut who drove into the Waukesha Christmas Parade had the same intent as a mass shooter, kill as many as possible. And the legacy press just said that a SUV hit a parade. Nothing about who or why. The same is true about the firebombing, they just said the building caught fire. Both imply that there was a natural cause. However as you know with Rittenhouse, the legacy press lied through it's teeth making up stories to sell a narrative. It's sick.

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Thanks for drawing attention to that June 2017 Steve Scalise shooting, Glenn. It's a moment that has regrettably fallen down the memory hole, but needs to be brought up more often.

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The bias in the media is pure hubris. Only the night before the shooting in Buffalo, 17 people were shot in a what can objectively be labeled a firefight, where at least 3 shooters sprayed bullets at each other and into anyone who happened to be caught in the middle. Because this Milwaukee shooting does not fit the narrative, and perhaps because it is sadly not uncommon, it has been almost completely ignored. Even the local headlines read, "Game 7 watch party cancelled," referring to the Milwaukee Bucks "Deer District" gathering that has become so popular.

The ~10000 black Americans shot every year in our cities continues to be a non-story. To put that into perspective, Ukraine claims it's civilian death toll from the war as of May 12 is 3573, and that's being called a *genocide.*

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Okay Glenn how the fxxx do you manage to write such a long essay on so little sleep? Honestly the ideas and facts written here is something I would have assumed would take weeks to put together. And this is exactly why I gladly pay my subscription monthly!!!!

Lastly, you do realize you drive MSM and the liberals in this country absolutely crazy....And for that I am ROFLMAO

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May 15, 2022·edited May 15, 2022

The Buffalo psychopath used a "Black Sun" symbol identical to a portion of that used by the Neonazi Azov Battalion.

Am I truly the only cat who finds it funny how the same people who proved so adept at spotting Secret Nazi Symbols in the most innocuous gestures have apparently been stricken blind all of a sudden?

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Am I the only one who's worried we're gonna see a great many of these mass killings leading into November? Followed by an equally great number of inflamed street protests? Followed by a staggering number of bird-brained commentaries?

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Glenn, Brilliant piece. Wish it would get the exposure it deserves. But right on point in every way. Thanks.

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May 15, 2022·edited May 15, 2022

Some of the most vicious and intolerant bigots I have ever come across have been left-wing pundits like Ana Kasparian and Cenk Uygur. With a straight face, these two prejudiced extremists indiscriminately attack people on the right as intolerant white supremacists.

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Nice analysis, but above all, I appreciate that you link to Gendron's actual manifesto. Too much of the mainstream news media thinks that primary sources are too dangerous for the general public to handle, and need to be summarized with a couple adjectives. (So many articles about how Billie Eilish or whoever "used a vulgar racial slur" without any context or quotation to allow the reader to judge for themselves.)

It's a good exercise to read through the words of someone like Gendron and do the intellectual work of thinking through his arguments and rejecting them. It's also useful to see how "right-wing" racism and "left-wing" environmentalism are part of the patchwork of ideology an unhinged maniac centers his worldview around. Almost like it's not one ideology or the other that's the problem, but the incessant doomsaying at the heart of every message you hear from every part of the media that's trying your attention. Whether you watch FOX or MSNBC or read the NYT or WSJ or listen to alternative podcasts and read substack or go on 8chan and watch Alex Jones, you're getting told that the world's about to end and there's some specific enemy to be really really scared of. All these eruptions of violence we're seeing across the spectrum aren't unrelated to each other.

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Carlson is one of the few honest and fearless commentators in MSM these days, and I don't think there is a racist bone in his body, despite what the discredited NYT says.

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May 15, 2022·edited May 15, 2022

One can only infer from all of this that there is a concerted campaign to sink Tucker because of his immense popularity--even among Democrats!--and this latest event has produced rejoicing among his haters for just this reason.

All the same, the attempt to make Tucker responsible for Glendron will crumble like all the other absurd attempts to make mere speech into "violence."

Carlson is not the racist--his critics are.

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Why do I think that this will be pushed by the anti-gun psychos to force votes or executive orders to limit firearm and ammunition availability? Even though none of the proposed laws would have stopped the massacre in question? Virtually every mass shooting includes either a legally bought firearm or a stolen one which new laws would do nothing to change. It's all sadly about power, and I honestly think a desire to disarm the population.

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Just last week a pro-life education center was bombed with a molotov cocktail. The MSM reported that the building "caught fire". I suppose it just spontaneously combusted. If a pro choice center or an abortion clinic were set on fire, we would have immediately heard that right wing, religious fanatics were trying to take away women's bodily autonomy.

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I have a slightly different take. Without getting into the merits or lack thereof of the Maddows and Carlsons of this world - honestly, who cares?, the fact is that public discourse of all types in the United States has coarsened tremendously over the last 50 or so years. Whether on TV shows, Twitter or public address systems, a minority of very self-important Americans say inflammatory things, and they do so incessantly. Violence in movies and television, violent video games in the hands of children, a public education system that eschews the teaching of restraint and reflection - the reader can decide what he/she thinks the causes are. But the result is clear: a prior culture of restraint and kindness in offering opinions has descended into a verbally abusive and factually challenged free for all. Yes, it's hard to blame a newscaster for the actions of an adoring nut, but we have to own up to the fact that we have allowed our public discourse to become a fetid swamp. Unfortunately but unsurprisingly, we are reaping the fruits of today's culture of civil discourse, which values shouting and epithets more than fairness and perspective.

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Rather than blame newsreaders and talking heads in this case, maybe take a look at the teachers and other influencers that helped form this 18 year old savage. “[C]onservatism is corporatism in disguise…” sounds suspiciously like what my 17 year old niece comes up with after half a year in U.S. public schools.

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When I was a college student in the 1960s, I noticed that some people were attracted to political activity not for the cause or the values but for the opportunity to play out their personal issues, often anger at their fathers. As Greenwald explains, the ideologies do not provoke the behavior. I think we have to look to individuals and their issues.

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