Shooting, Protesting, Looting. Lather, Rinse, Repeat.

September 23, 2016

If you get a big enough group of people, that group will inevitably include good people and bad people. If you gather a big enough group of angry protesters, you're going to include people who are genuinely expressing their feelings of outrage against injustice, and you're going to include people who think, "Hey, this is my chance to steal some stuff." Or, "Let's hurt some people by throwing rocks at cars, police officers, or down from overpasses at oncoming cars."

The presence of the "let's steal some stuff" people taint whatever cause the other protesters claim to defend.

The good news is that there was almost no violence Thursday night in Charlotte, and most of the protests were peaceful. Most of them:

Only one notable confrontation with police occurred after hundreds of marchers briefly blocked the John Belk Freeway.

About 10:30 p.m., protesters passed Bank of America Stadium and began climbing up to Interstate 277.

Police blocked traffic on the highway, then a phalanx of officers in riot gear moved in to drive demonstrators off the highway.

Someone hurled a bottle in the direction of the police line and officers responded with tear gas, and demonstrators withdrew.

The Charlotte-Mecklenburg police tweeted after midnight that two officers were treated by Medic after being sprayed with a chemical agent by demonstrators.

But once again we see government leaders telling the public that things are "normal" when they are anything but normal:

Meanwhile Thursday, Mayor Jennifer Roberts proclaimed that Charlotte was open for business and assured citizens that order would be maintained.

But on the streets, institutions across uptown shuttered their doors — some covered with plywood after marauders shattered facades in a riotous rampage the night before sparked by the shooting of a black man by police.

"People are walking the street, conducting business, as usual as normal," said Roberts, noting that Charlotte has largely and traditionally worked out its racial problems without violence.

Humvees pulled into Charlotte's National Guard garrison, responding to a state of emergency declared by Gov. Pat McCrory, who also ordered the State Highway Patrol to reinforce troopers in Charlotte.

And the city's most prominent businesses — including Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Duke Energy, Fifth Third Bank and Ally Financial — encouraged tens of thousands of uptown staffers to work from home. Museums of the Levine Center for the Arts on Tryon Street closed.

Jeremy Carl is getting tired of the subtle justification for the unjustifiable:

At a campaign rally yesterday, Hillary Clinton said, "There is still much we don't know about what happened . . . but we do know that we have two more names to add to a list of African Americans killed by police officers in these encounters," cleverly imputing, without directly saying so, that all of these deaths were unjustified. "It's unbearable, and it needs to become intolerable," Clinton continued, before tossing off a few meaningless pro-police sentiments to give her some plausible deniability.

"Intolerable." That's an interesting choice of words. Well, when I watch these videos of lawless rioting in my home state, with people shot, more than 20 police officers assaulted and hospitalized, windows smashed, and stores looted, that is intolerable.

It's intolerable, Hillary Clinton, that business owners of all races who have invested in Charlotte had their property destroyed by thugs and rioters.

Where Is Hillary? No, Really, Where Is She?

I noticed something in that other morning newsletter put out by Politico:

Thursday: Donald Trump is in Chester Township, Pennsylvania, for an evening rally. Mike Pence is in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Hillary Clinton has no public events scheduled. Tim Kaine is in Reno, Nevada, at the University of Nevada - Reno, Lincoln & Meta Fitzgerald Student Services Building.

Friday: Hillary Clinton has no events scheduled. Tim Kaine is campaigning in Houston. Donald Trump and Mike Pence have no events scheduled.

I realize she's probably doing debate prep, but has she really done only two public events this week, one in Orlando, one in Philadelphia? Is she really listed for almost no public events in the coming weeks?

What the Heck Is Gary Johnson Doing?

For some reason, Gary Johnson decided to talk with his tongue hanging out of this mouth during an interview with MSNBC's Kasie Hunt.

HUNT: "Do you think if you were able to get on the debate stage that you could pull even with Trump and Clinton in these polls?"

JOHNSON: "I do. And it wouldn't have anything to do with my debate performance either. It would just be that people would recognize that there's another choice and that there would be an examination of me and Bill Weld as who we are and what we've done and based on that. (Talks with his tongue out) I think I could stand up there for the whole debate and not say anything and emerge as a leader."

The sympathetic interpretation is that he's just trying to make a point and make her laugh. The less sympathetic interpretation is that Johnson is every bit as weird as his critics claim, and that he regularly finds new ways to confirm suspicions that he's way too enthusiastic about marijuana legalization.

A lot of Libertarians did not like my Corner post contending that Johnson's exclusion from the debates is neither an injustice nor an outrage, and that the 15 percent threshold, while high, is not unfair. A lot of Libertarians think that no polls should be used to determine debate participation; the lone criteria should be whether the candidate has qualified for the ballot in all 50 states — which, lo and behold, happens to be just what their man did. I'm sure Jill Stein supporters think the threshold should be appearing on the ballot on 44 states.

"What's the fairest threshold for participating in the presidential debates?"

"Just below whatever my favorite candidate has done."

This year was a golden opportunity for the Libertarians, with two extraordinarily disliked major party nominees, and they are just throwing it away.

ADDENDA: A different start to this week's pop-culture podcast, as I begin by spitting hot fire about the Twitter's brief suspension of Glenn Reynolds, a.k.a., Instapundit. Mickey points out that this week's South Park dealt with the phenomenon of people leaving Twitter in that show's typically incisive style of satire. We also examine Post-Brangelina America, Survivor's decision to pit the Millennials against Generation X, and some other fall television offerings like lawsuit-triggering Jon Benet documentaries and Minnie Driver's Speechless.