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Aug. 27, 2020 - The Ben Shapiro Show

01:05:43

Can America Survive This? | Ep. 1083

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	Chaos continues in Kenosha, Wisconsin and spreads to Minneapolis as a false rumor of another police shooting goes viral.
	The NBA closes down to protest supposed systemic American racism and the RNC defends cops and the flag on its third night.
	I'm Ben Shapiro.
	This is the Ben Shapiro Show.
	Why haven't you gotten a VPN yet?
	Visit expressvpn.com.
	Before we begin, I'd be remiss if I did not mention it's a little volatile out there.
	You may have noticed this.
	I mean, we have a double-barreled hurricane that is now moving toward America's coast and it's already hitting.
	We have massive riots in the streets of the United States.
	We have a big election coming up.
	A lot of uncertainty out there.
	I've been telling you to invest at least a little bit in precious metals since 2016.
	Don't you wish you'd listened to me?
	That was way back when gold was $1,300 an ounce.
	And just look now, gold is at a new all-time high.
	Why?
	Well, gold and silver thrive on uncertainty.
	When you're talking about a COVID pandemic with massive unemployment, and a monumental election around the corner, and the Chinese firing missiles into the South China Sea, well, there's a lot of uncertainty out there, so you might want to take some of your money and put it in precious metals.
	If you haven't reached out to my friends at Birch Gold to diversify part of your IRA or 401k into a precious metals IRA, or just get some physical gold or silver from them, Go ahead and do it today. Text Ben to 474747. Get a free information kit on protecting your savings with gold. Listen, I have some precious metals. You should too. I trust the folks over at Birch Gold. They've got an A-plus rating with the Better Business Bureau and countless five-star reviews.
	Talk to them. Have them help you safeguard your investments.
	They're extremely knowledgeable.
	They want to help you protect your savings. Ask all your questions. Get all your answers.
	And then think about investing at least a little bit in precious metals by texting Ben to 474747.
	When you open an IRA in precious metals before August 30th, you'll be the first to get a signed copy of my new book, How to Destroy America, in three easy steps for free.
	It's pretty relevant right now.
	Again, text Ben to 474747.
	Hurry up, get the special offer.
	Text Ben to 474747.
	Okay, we're gonna get to everything that is happening in domestic American politics, including the burning of more major American cities.
	As we continue to back the narrative that America is systemically racist and evil, and then watch as people burn down large American cities and small American cities.
	Kenosha is a town of about 100,000 people.
	But here is your quick Hurricane Laura update.
	According to Weather.com, at this hour, Hurricane Laura has now moved inland across Louisiana with damaging winds, flooding rain, and tornadoes after Category 4 landfall.
	This is wind gusts of up to 100 to 135 miles per hour being recorded in southwestern Louisiana.
	According to Weather.com, Hurricane Laura made landfall early Thursday morning and is now tracking northward across western Louisiana with threats of destructive winds, flooding, rainfall, storm surges, and tornadoes.
	Laura made landfall near Cameron, Louisiana at 1 a.m.
	Central Time as a strong Category 4 hurricane with 150 mph winds.
	This is the first Category 4 landfalling hurricane on record, according to the NOAA.
	Laura is now tracking through western Louisiana as a Category 2 hurricane this morning, which is certainly better than a Category 4.
	The hurricane's winds will slowly weaken as it moves further inland toward Arkansas today.
	The winds have knocked out power to more than 600,000 homes and businesses in southeast Texas and Louisiana.
	There was extensive wind damage in Lake Charles, Louisiana, including numerous shattered windows and downtown skyscrapers.
	A communication tower collapsed.
	Power poles toppled and roofs shredded.
	Some of the footage is pretty astonishing.
	Trees and power lines were reported down all over the city in Shreveport.
	According to local law enforcement, multiple downed lines and power lines also blocked roads through Caldwell Parish, Louisiana.
	There have also been reports of wind damage from Lafayette, Starks, and Vinton, Louisiana, and Natchez, Mississippi.
	Hurricane warnings have been dropped at the immediate coast.
	They continue for inland parishes of Louisiana.
	Listen to your local authorities.
	If you are in the path of this thing and they're telling you to get out of the way, then get out of the way because you don't want to be in the way of this one.
	Okay, meanwhile, the country continues to burn and it continues to burn because there is a narrative and the narrative must be purveyed at all costs.
	It is a narrative pushed by the media.
	It's a narrative pushed by the Democratic Party.
	It is a narrative that America is systemically racist and that every incident caught on film of a white police officer in an altercation with a black citizen stems from America's terrible history of racism.
	These are the 1619 riots.
	They continue.
	This is all rooted in a certain ideology.
	It's an ideology I talk about as disintegrationism in my book, How to Destroy America in Three Easy Steps, which is now more relevant than ever, unfortunately.
	The philosophy of disintegrationism says that we don't actually share any values.
	All we are are a series of competing interests, a series of competing tribal interests who are unified because we are basically locked in this prison together.
	And therefore, whoever has the power is the person who makes the rules.
	And the only way to rest the power is to use whatever means are at your disposal.
	And we are seeing this take place on the streets of Kenosha, Wisconsin.
	We're seeing this take place in the streets of Minneapolis.
	We're seeing this take place in the halls of power politically and in corporate America.
	And we're seeing the media egg it all on because the media like the narrative.
	The media believe the narrative that America is systemically racist and systemically evil.
	And so they are not going to be concerned with any of the facts of any given situation.
	Not one.
	They're not going to care that it now turns out that Jacob Blake had a knife.
	They're not going to care about that.
	It now turns out that they found on the floorboards of the car where he was reaching in when he was shot, Jacob Blake, this is the 29-year-old black man who was shot by the police in Kenosha, Wisconsin, after the police were called because of a domestic disturbance.
	This is a man who had an open warrant for domestic violence and sexual assault.
	He drove to some house.
	Apparently the person in the house called the police.
	Because he was trying to grab her keys.
	He was in a place he should not have been.
	This is according to the police scanner phone call.
	They pulled up his police record.
	They saw he had an open warrant.
	He had resisted arrest before.
	They arrived.
	He resisted arrest again.
	And they apparently tried to tase him.
	It didn't work.
	He got up, he walked around to the other side of the car while they shouted at him to stop and they had their guns drawn.
	He reached down inside the car.
	They don't know if he's got a gun there.
	They don't know if he's got a knife there.
	It turns out there was a knife apparently on the floorboards of the car.
	This is what you call a justified shooting that is not prosecutable.
	Okay, there's no way this is prosecutable in a court of law.
	At all.
	Zero chance this gets prosecuted.
	There's an open arrest warrant for a man with a history of violence with police, domestic violence, and sexual assault.
	They actively attempt to arrest him peacefully.
	He resists arrest, throws them off, disobeys orders, goes to the front of his car, reaches inside, and then they found a knife on the floorboards.
	You wonder why he was shot?
	That's why he was shot.
	It's amazing, we constantly hear these stories from black parents, particularly in the media, talking about how they have to give the talk to their kids, you know, obey the police because you never know what the police are gonna do.
	First of all, my understanding is that every single person who drives, like when you get your driver's license, you have this particular talk, like in driver's training, they literally tell you, put your hands to 10 and two, obey the orders of the police, don't reach for the glove box.
	I had this talk with my parents and it's not race-based, it's a don't upset the police situation because you don't want the police to shoot you.
	Okay, you're not supposed to reach for the glove box no matter what your race is.
	Unless you are telling the police what exactly is in the glove box, you're supposed to be very careful about how you interact with police in all circumstances.
	But if you're going to name a situation in which the talk didn't work, you cannot name Jacob Blake as such a situation.
	The man disobeyed every single order, he actively resisted arrest, he reached into his car, Into a place the cops apparently could not see.
	And there was a knife in the car.
	So I'm really wanting to know here what exactly you expect the cops to do.
	I saw people suggesting, oh, well, the cops should have tased him.
	They tried to, apparently.
	So this is a textbook example of a non-prosecutable shooting by a police officer.
	According to the new reports from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the Wisconsin Department of Justice Wednesday evening named the officer who shot Jacob Blake and provided additional information about the shooting.
	Blake had a knife on the driver's side floorboard.
	On the driver's side floorboard.
	Okay, that would be like where he was reaching, guys.
	You can see it in the tape.
	He's reaching to the driver's side floorboard after resisting arrest.
	After resisting arrest.
	What do you think the cops are going to do in that situation?
	Are they going to sit around and wait for him to wheel on them with a knife?
	Okay, this is my favorite part.
	Here is the headline.
	Okay, here is the headline.
	Originally, from the Wisconsin Journal Sentinel.
	The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
	This was the original headline.
	You ready?
	Listen to this.
	Jacob Blake had knife in car, but was otherwise unarmed, Wisconsin DOJ says, as it releases name of Kenosha officer who shot him in the back.
	Well, he had a knife in the car, but otherwise he was unarmed.
	Well, you know, that night at the theater for Abraham Lincoln, it was, I mean, aside from the shooting, it was otherwise a fairly decent night.
	What in the world does that mean?
	That scene in Terminator 2, where Arnold Schwarzenegger is standing at the window holding a minigun.
	Aside from the minigun, he was otherwise unarmed, it seems.
	What does that headline even mean?
	The headline is so dedicated to the narrative that Jacob Blake was wrongfully shot that they are going to actively downplay one of the key factors in him being shot.
	Namely, disobeying the police and apparently going for a weapon on the driver's side floorboard of the car.
	So one of two things is true.
	Okay, so we don't actually know whether he had the knife before that.
	Either he was already walking with the knife and reaching into the car, in which case, still a good shoot.
	Or, he was reaching into the car for the knife, in which case, still a good shoot.
	And by the way, even if there had not been a knife there, when you disobey the cops and you do the specific thing they tell you not to do in the talk, then why are we acting as though this is unjustified?
	Seriously, legally unjustified?
	But again, the narrative matters more than anything.
	That is all that matters.
	So naturally, the Democratic governor of Wisconsin completely failed in his duty to protect the city of Kenosha over the past 72 hours.
	The city of Kenosha burned again last night.
	And over the past 72 hours, we saw this horrible situation where a 17-year-old man, and you are a man by law, you can be tried as a man by law, a 17-year-old man shot three people in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
	And the media jumped on this story, not just because there was shooting.
	It was really not just because there was shooting, because there have been shootings at other Black Lives Matter protests and riots and lootings.
	In fact, last count, I think over 30 people have been shot in these various riots and lootings.
	But this one obviously drew national attention because in this particular case, it was a white 17-year-old who shot apparently three other white people, by the way.
	I mean, that's sort of worthwhile mentioning.
	So the three people he shot were white.
	So the media jumped on this particular incident specifically because these were quote-unquote armed militia members who had arrived in Kenosha, Wisconsin in order to defend private property.
	And the person who did the shooting is a guy named Kyle Rittenhouse.
	He's 17 years old and he traveled from Illinois in order to defend private property.
	So many things can be true here at once.
	One, you probably, if you're not an agent for a business in the state of Wisconsin, you cannot just go and defend somebody else's property.
	That's not the way it works.
	The way, like, if you're hired as a security guard, you can defend the property and you have all the rights of the owner with regard to the property.
	If you're not an agent of the owner, then you don't have the same rights to protect the owner's property.
	Two, you're allowed to protect your own life.
	If somebody, Threatens your life.
	If somebody threatens to do you bodily harm, of course the rights of self-defense still apply.
	This is not the place for an untrained 17-year-old is in the middle of a riot.
	That is not a place that a 17-year-old should be.
	Hey, Thor, just because all of those things happen to be true does not mean that this guy is guilty of first degree murder.
	We're going to go through the tape.
	We're going to go through the timeline.
	And then we do have to ask the question here.
	Why is this happening?
	And the answer as to why this is happening is because Governor Tony Evers, who is a horrible governor, decided he was not going to call in the National Guard sufficient to quash the rioting and the looting and the violence.
	Because, in the view of so many Democratic mayors and governors of cities, they've decided that it's worthwhile to give people space to let things burn.
	In the famous words of the former Baltimore mayor during the Baltimore riots in 2015.
	2014-2015.
	Remember, the mayor of Baltimore said we needed to give them space to burn.
	This has been the perspective for many Democrats.
	In the city of Los Angeles where I live, Eric Garcetti shut down the entire city for a week running at 7 p.m.
	to give people space to loot and burn.
	If you don't want this to happen, there's a very easy way to stop it, and that is you call in the National Guard and you stop it dead.
	You stop it cold.
	When that doesn't happen, you know what happens?
	People start to defend other people's property.
	People start to move in and they start to confront people who are committing active violence and looting.
	In fact, you know the single best example of how violence in communities rises when you remove law enforcement.
	That's what's been happening in these high crime areas.
	A lot of people ask, why is there this great differential in murder rates between blacks and blacks and between whites and whites, for example?
	The murder rate in the black community is about nine times higher, somewhere between seven and nine times higher than in the white community has been for generations at this point.
	Why is that?
	Well, the original reason, Thomas Sowell points out, is because white communities basically said to black communities, you're on your own.
	We're not gonna give you police resources.
	And thus, what you ended up with is what you have everywhere, where there is no centralized authority that ensures law and order and support for property rights.
	What you end up with is people gathering to defend themselves and defend their properties and the property of their friends against other human beings.
	Where the mob rules, chaos reigns, as I pointed out yesterday.
	Well, the mob ruled in Wisconsin and chaos reigned in Wisconsin.
	And so it is a perfectly predictable response that you're going to get people who, in vigilante fashion, decide that they're going to go out and protect the private property.
	Of other people.
	Now, should they be doing that without training?
	No.
	Should a 17-year-old be out there?
	No.
	That does not mean that the person who committed the shooting was a quote-unquote white supremacist.
	Okay, that was the rumor that started floating around yesterday.
	There's not one iota of evidence that Kyle Rittenhouse is a white supremacist at this point.
	Not one.
	Not an iota.
	Not a shred.
	Doesn't matter.
	Senator Chris Murphy, that disgusting human being, in order to generate more of a narrative, Senator Chris Murphy from Connecticut, he tweeted out, That is 100% not what happened.
	That is 100% not what happened.
	Doesn't matter.
	The narrative has to be promulgated.
	The lie has to be promulgated.
	That is not what happened.
	100% not what happened.
	That is 100% not what happened.
	Doesn't matter.
	The narrative has to be promulgated.
	The lie has to be promulgated.
	That is not what happened.
	Doesn't mean the 17 year old should have been out there.
	But this kid, this person, I'm going to call him a man, he's 17 years old.
	He is not going to, this young man, he is not going to be prosecuted for first degree murder because it's an unsustainable charge, nor was he out there willy nilly shooting That is not what happened.
	And if you believe the media telling you this, it's because they are lying to you, and they think you are stupid, and you don't have eyes in your head, or a prefrontal cortex that is operational.
	We're gonna get to the specific facts of the case.
	I know we're not supposed to talk specific facts of cases anymore.
	We're just supposed to be bullied into believing who is the villain, and who is the hero, and who is the criminal, and who is the non-criminal in these particular situations.
	We're supposed to just believe that on the basis of no evidence whatsoever, that the officers in the Breonna Taylor killing need to be rounded up and they need to be prosecuted, despite the fact that there is no criminal law basis for their prosecution.
	We're supposed to believe that the officers in the Jacob Blake shooting need to be rounded up and prosecuted and put in jail for life, despite the fact that there is no sustainable prosecutorial case against them.
	Hell, we're supposed to believe that the officer in the Michael Brown shooting is guilty, even though there were two separate state prosecutors and an Obama DOJ investigation that found that the shooting was justified.
	You're just supposed to believe the narrative.
	And if you look at the facts, this apparently makes you racially insensitive.
	Because the overall narrative must be supported.
	And if the facts are not sufficient to sustain the narrative, you just ignore the facts on the ground.
	So, because the media wish to ignore the rioting and the looting, because the media are rooting, in many ways, for the rioting and the looting, many in the media are interested in sustaining the rationale behind the rioting and the looting.
	Because of- we're gonna see this, okay?
	Because of all of that, you end up with more rioting, you end up with more looting, you end up with more violence, and you end up with a false narrative that the violence began in Kenosha, Wisconsin when the armed militia arrived.
	Which is the same thing, basically, as saying that when the federal troops arrived in Portland, the violence began on a timeline basis.
	It's a lie.
	It's always been a lie.
	The violence preceded the federal troops arriving in Portland.
	It is now post-dating the federal troops leaving in Portland.
	The federal force is leaving in Portland.
	And guess what?
	If the armed militia goes away tomorrow in Kenosha, the rioting and looting will continue.
	Because the armed militia showed up.
	These armed guys showing up to protect private property, allegedly.
	They showed up after the rioting and looting.
	You think they're just hanging out in Kenosha?
	And then Black Lives Matter showed up?
	That's not how this happened.
	But the narrative has to be maintained at all costs.
	The real bad guys in this situation are anybody who shows up to protect private property.
	Even if they shouldn't be there, the rioters and looters are not... It can't be that there are two sets of people who did something wrong.
	It's got to be that there's one set of people who did something wrong and one group of absolute heroes.
	And we're going to twist the narrative in order to get there.
	We'll get to how the media twisted this narrative, because it really is incredible.
	You have to ignore every fact on the ground in order to get to this narrative.
	And we'll get there in just one second.
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	Write Shapiro in their How Did You Hear About Us box so they know that we sent you.
	Again, write Shapiro in their How Did You Hear About Us box at rockauto.com so they know that we sent you.
	Okay, so the media are absolutely twisting the story of what happened with Kyle Rittenhouse.
	Again, doesn't mean the 17-year-old should be crossing state lines with a gun.
	I believe there's a gun charge here.
	He'll probably get convicted of the gun charge.
	This is not a first-degree murder case.
	There's no legal standard by which you can claim, based on the available footage, beyond a reasonable doubt that this is a first-degree murder case.
	Here is how the media covered it, however.
	AP, a white 17-year-old police admirer was arrested Wednesday after two people were shot to death during a third straight night of protests in Kenosha over the police shooting of a black man, Jacob Blake.
	Kyle Rittenhouse of Antioch, Illinois, about 15 miles from Kenosha, was taken into custody in Illinois on suspicion of first-degree intentional homicide in the attack Tuesday that was largely captured on cell phone video.
	The shooting left a third person wounded.
	I just killed somebody, the gunman carrying a semi-automatic rifle could be heard saying at one point.
	Okay, it takes until paragraph 18 Paragraph 18 of this story to explain what exactly happened here.
	Apparently, what actually happened here is that he was attacked twice.
	Okay, so we have all this on tape.
	There's plenty of cell phone video.
	So let's go through the cell phone video.
	By the way, this is not my account of what happened that night.
	This is now the account of the New York Times.
	A person named Christian Trebert is the visual investigations guy at the New York Times.
	And he used to work for the I believe the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
	But in any case, he actually traced the movements of this person.
	So, the night began for Kyle Rittenhouse explaining to various members of conservative media, who were on the ground there doing the actual coverage, why he was there.
	So here's the 17-year-old guy explaining that not only is he there to protect private property, he's also a trained EMT, so he's there to provide medical attention to people.
	By the way, in the early hours of this particular riot, he provided medical attention to the rioters and the looters.
	Hey, that is not a white supremacist out to shoot rioters and looters.
	Here was Kyle Rittenhouse explaining.
	We're protecting from the citizens, and I just got pepper sprayed by a person in the crowd.
	So you had non-lethal, but you didn't respond.
	We don't have non-lethal.
	So you guys are full-on ready to defend the property?
	Yes, we are.
	Now, if I can ask, can you guys step back?
	Medical!
	EMF right here!
	I'm an EMT!
	Okay, so literally at the end of the tape, he says, I'm an EMT.
	I'm happy to help, right?
	Those are rioters and looters.
	Those are the protesters, right?
	I'm happy to help.
	Okay, at one point, Rittenhouse walks up to a police vehicle with a rifle slung and he talks with the police officers and one tosses a water bottle to them.
	This has been used as evidence that the police officers are in league with these guys, okay?
	These guys are not violating the law at this point.
	If you're over the age of 18, you're allowed to publicly carry in Wisconsin for virtually any reason.
	Okay, so it only starts to become a crime if you wrongfully use the gun.
	Okay, so what happens, according to Christian Treber, is that Rittenhouse eventually leaves the car dealership that he is defending, and he's barred by the police from returning at that point because he has crossed the line.
	And then there were six separate live streams.
	So there were two separate shooting incidents, one about a minute and a half earlier than the other.
	So in the first, you can see Rittenhouse, he's being chased into a parking lot.
	Okay, while he's being pursued, this is according to the New York Times, while he is being pursued, an unknown gunman fires the first shot into the air.
	So he doesn't fire the first shot.
	Somebody else is chasing him and fires the first shot.
	You can actually see it in another angle of this particular tape, but here is what is, then what happens is he goes behind a car.
	There's a man who's throwing things at him and chasing him.
	You hear some shouting, and then he fires.
	Right, according to the New York Times, while he's being pursued, an unknown gunman fires the first shot into the air.
	Rittenhouse turns toward the sound of the gunfire as another pursuer lunges toward him.
	He then fires four times with his assault rifle and appears to shoot the man in the head.
	Okay, so this is all disturbing footage, so you've been warned.
	Here is the tape.
	You can see Rittenhouse being pursued by this guy.
	Chasing him, he throws something.
	It's not a Molotov cocktail, by the way.
	It's a bag filled with something.
	Okay, and then there's a slight delay, and then you see the shots go off.
	Okay, now at this point, at this point, it's unclear why Rittenhouse was being chased, why he was in the area of this car dealership.
	It's about four blocks away from the one that he was originally protecting.
	Okay, the initial shot were fired by three more shots in the parking lot.
	We don't know who fired them.
	Rittenhouse then takes out his phone and he makes a phone call.
	He calls 911 to both turn himself in, because somebody has been shot, right?
	You can see him there on the cell phone.
	And he's calling.
	He's calling the cops to come.
	And then people start chasing him again.
	So people start chasing him again.
	Which brings us to tape number two.
	Now he's running away from a mob that is attempting to do him harm.
	How do we know they're attempting to do him harm?
	Because he falls down and one of them shouts, get his ass!
	At which point a man jumps on him with a skateboard and tries to club him with the skateboard.
	At this point, Rittenhouse shoots the guy who's trying to club him with a skateboard, and there's another man who's approaching him with a pistol.
	Now, we don't know if this guy with the pistol is the one who originally fired the shot in the air at the incident a minute and a half earlier.
	Okay, and here is what it looked like when he shot two other people.
	One of these guys died.
	He was running toward the police, by the way, to turn himself in.
	Right?
	This is what he was doing.
	Okay, so you can see, this guy hits him from behind.
	Here are people chasing him.
	You can see he's pushed from behind and he falls down on the ground.
	He turns around and a guy tries to jump on him with a skateboard.
	There's several people trying to jump on him.
	He shoots one of them and then another guy has a gun and he shoots him in the arm.
	The guy who shot in the arm does have a pistol.
	There are pictures of him.
	Half his arm is gone because this is what happens when you get hit close range by a bullet.
	And then he's trying to surrender.
	The cops don't actually know what's going on at this point, so they drive past him.
	So people have been using this as, why didn't they arrest him?
	Because they don't know what's going on yet.
	He's with his hands up.
	That's why they don't arrest him.
	Like, why didn't they shoot him?
	They shot Jacob Blake because he wasn't going for a knife against the cops.
	That would be the reason, guys.
	Trevor Noah, idiot, was like, oh, well, Jacob Blake got shot.
	Why didn't they shoot this guy?
	Because he literally was not pointing a gun at them.
	That would be the reason.
	By the way, lots of criminals don't get shot by the cops.
	People pointed out that the shooter in Charleston, the horrible, racist shooting of the terrorist attack on the black church in Charleston, that shooter was captured alive by the cops.
	Right, because he didn't try to shoot the cops.
	The Washington, D.C.
	snipers were also captured alive by the cops.
	They were black because they weren't trying to shoot the cops.
	Okay, in any case, he ends up being arrested and charged with first-degree murder.
	Based on this tape, it's going to be very difficult to sustain a first-degree murder conviction.
	Like, extremely difficult.
	There's no evidence according to the senator from Connecticut calls him a deranged white supremacist.
	No evidence of that.
	Also, there is no evidence that he was out there to shoot people.
	Right?
	He's literally running away from people in both of these states.
	The only way you get a first-degree murder conviction is if he was threatening somebody with the gun before somebody tried to jump him or something.
	Okay?
	We don't have evidence of that.
	By the way, who are the people who were killed?
	Who are the people who were shot?
	We'll get to their backgrounds in just one second because it does add some context to what exactly happened.
	We'll get to more of this in just one second first.
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	Okay, so who are the people who are actually shot and you know, doing the reporting that the mainstream media will not do?
	The first guy who was shot, the one who died.
	And there's a Daily Caller reporter on scene who took off his shirt, tried to turn and cut the guy's head.
	The guy died anyway.
	The media, by the way, really downplayed the fact that there was a right-wing reporter trying to help a protester slash rioter slash looter who was threatening the teen shooter.
	His name was Joseph Rosenbaum.
	He was 36.
	Video allegedly showed him chasing the teen shooter and throwing something at him.
	And then he kind of ducks behind a car before the shooting actually happens.
	He's a registered sex offender for a sex crime involving a minor.
	You can also see him on tape a little bit earlier in the night threatening people.
	And so it seems like maybe the aggressor here in the original iteration might not have been Kyle Rittenhouse.
	Here is the tape of this guy.
	This is, what, minutes before the actual shooting?
	Okay, so you can see him there.
	He's in the red shirt.
	And he is saying the N-word.
	He is saying the N-word at that point.
	It ends with an A in his iteration.
	Okay, and this is the person who ended up being shot, apparently.
	So that is one person.
	The second person who was shot is a person named Anthony Huber, shot and killed.
	He was filmed chasing down the teen and hitting him when he was on the ground with a skateboard.
	He has a criminal history including charges of battery and repeat domestic abuse.
	And the third person who was shot and survived is a person named Gage Grosskreutz, who is 26, a member of the People's Revolution Movement.
	He was filmed chasing after the teen with a pistol.
	And we shot at close range in the upper arm, and he has a criminal record as well, including being intoxicated and armed with a gun.
	So there are all your facts, all of your facts, most of which you will not receive from the mainstream media except for that one late-breaking but good thorough report from the New York Times.
	So the story you've been told is that this kid was a deranged white supremacist militia member who went out looking for blood.
	There is little to no evidence that that is the case.
	It's going to be very difficult to sustain a first-degree murder charge against this person.
	Now, meanwhile, the danger levels were rising in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
	There's tape of one of the people who is one of the rioters and looters encouraging the BLM crowd to head on off to people's homes and harass them at their homes and businesses, which is always a great look.
	Nobody that way is giving us problems!
	Let's go over where the police are, where the man is.
	You know, that's the line here.
	So we're going to go over into peaceful civilian areas and create chaos.
	So that's always a great look.
	So how did the media cover all of this?
	So the media have been downplaying rioting and looting.
	They've been saying that it's a myth.
	It's something in your imagination for a long time.
	Did the media change their minds when it turns out that it is not only not a myth, Americans are worried about it?
	Of course not.
	This is an actual chyron that appeared on CNN last night.
	It was so insane, I thought it had to be photoshopped when I first saw it last night.
	So there's a segment CNN aired.
	They had a reporter on the ground.
	This is not the reporter's fault.
	He didn't write the chyron.
	And in this segment, you can see literally things burning behind the reporter.
	So here is the reporter in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
	You're gonna hear him talk.
	The chyron underneath.
	Literally things are burning in the background.
	You can see cars, businesses burning in the background.
	The chyron from CNN.
	Your most trusted name in news.
	Your media who are actively rooting for rioting and looting and justifying rioting and looting and excusing it and proclaiming that anyone who opposes rioting and looting is opposed to black lives and all of this bullcrap.
	Okay, here is CNN's chyron.
	I'm gonna read it to you.
	Okay, you ready?
	Fiery, but mostly peaceful protests after police shooting.
	Fiery, but mostly peaceful protests.
	So, here's what we've got from the media.
	He had a knife, but otherwise unarmed.
	And fiery, but mostly peaceful protests.
	After police shooting.
	They think you're a moron.
	They think you're an actual moron.
	You're looking at tape of crap burning in the background.
	And the chyron, I don't know who wrote, like, who the hell wrote, did the rioters write the chyron?
	Apparently.
	Fiery, but mostly peaceful protests.
	Yes, and the Titanic voyage, as my friend Bridget Phetasy says, the Titanic voyage was watery, but mostly safe.
	Fiery, but mostly peaceful protests after police shooting.
	They're justifying the rioting, they're justifying the looting.
	They want it, they like it.
	There's no other way to justify that, Chiron.
	That's insane.
	That's insane.
	And then, of course, you get the members of the CNN crew trying to blame Trump for the unrest.
	Is a single one of these areas governed by Republicans?
	The answer is no.
	They've been governed by Democrats for decades.
	Here's Anderson Cooper trying to blame Trump for the unrest.
	Trump!
	Who has nothing to do with this!
	Okay, here's Anderson Cooper.
	The vice president is saying, quote, we will have law and order on the streets of America, future tense, we will have it, but this is Trump's America.
	I mean, he has been now in power, it is as if the vice president and the president are talking as if they are just observers to what is going on, as if they are running to unseat the sitting president and vice president.
	This is the administration.
	This is their vision for America.
	Their vision for America is the rioting and the looting?
	When Trump sent in federal forces to try and stop this stuff in Chicago and in Portland, Anderson Cooper and the rest of the CNN jackasses were sitting around talking about how he was a fascist.
	Jake Tapper, who's normally much better than this, but Jake Tapper yesterday was like, look at these RNC people.
	They're dehumanizing the rioters and looters.
	You're damn right.
	Okay, like, it is not humane or human behavior.
	It is inhuman behavior to participate in rioting and looting.
	That is not behavior that should be humanized.
	It is not good behavior.
	Okay, you should be treated with disdain if you are rioting and if you are looting.
	And no, I'm not talking about protesters here.
	The media does this fun little trick where if you specifically say that you think that rioting and looting is inhumane behavior and should not be humanized, That if you say that, then you are somehow dehumanizing protesters.
	They're not the same group.
	And if you keep treating them as the same group, then you are actually doing a disservice to the protesters, of course.
	But here is Jake Tapper saying it's very bad that Republicans keep using this, you know, inflammatory language about people who are burning crap and trying to kill people.
	Jake is better than this, and I'm shocked at him, frankly.
	We've known that this was going to break throughout the night, and I wondered if that was going to temper at all some of the language we have heard from Republican officials talking about the mob, talking about these protesters in very dehumanizing ways.
	This individual, if he is guilty, he is responsible for his crimes.
	Not any of the individuals he supports, including President Trump.
	But the idea that a supporter of President Trump is accused of killing protesters last night... Okay, what?
	Okay, first of all, you may want to actually include the facts of the case there, Jake.
	It turns out that by video, the guy is probably defending himself.
	It's going to be very difficult to sustain a first-degree murder charge in that particular case.
	And then to blame that on Trump?
	And then to suggest, how dare people use dehumanizing language about a mob of people who are attempting to burn businesses and loot things and be the world's worst humans?
	I don't know how to read the media treatment of this other than they are rooting for the rioters and looters.
	I don't know how to read that.
	I'd love to read it another way.
	I mean, there was an ABC News reporter last night who's like, well, Trump, you know, he keeps doing this thing where he leans into law and order.
	Why is he leaning into law and order?
	Maybe he's leaning into law and order because the cities are damned on fire.
	Like, what in the actual hell is wrong with these people?
	This is ABC News last night.
	Silence from the president on this shooting of Jacob Blake.
	He was briefed on it days ago, but so far has not made any public comments.
	Instead, what we are seeing from the president is him leaning into his law and order message, saying that the governor of Wisconsin should call in the National Guard to help with the racial unrest and the violence in his state.
	And that does serve as a sharp contrast to what his rival, Joe Biden, is saying.
	It draws a sharp contrast because Biden is so sympathetic and empathetic.
	By the way, we're going to get to Joe Biden in just a second.
	Who continues to throw fuel on the fire.
	I understand that yesterday he made a statement where he, in very measured terms, says that it's unnecessary to engage in rioting and looting, and then proceeded to justify basically every element of the rioting and looting.
	He just said, don't be so pissed off, vote for me.
	Right?
	This is the blackmail game that the Democrats are playing.
	Barack Obama played it last week.
	The protesters are the best among us.
	Riots and looters don't exist.
	And by the way, the only way to heal this, the system works.
	If you just vote for us, you just vote for us.
	And then you don't have to riot and loot.
	Because all your problems will be solved.
	Okay, American voters should not acquiesce to this game of extortion, where Democratic politicians essentially pat on the head rioters and looters for months on end in places like Portland and Seattle and Chicago and New York and Washington D.C.
	and Los Angeles.
	And then they say, well, yes, but if you elect us, don't worry, the system is still working.
	It's despicable.
	We're gonna get to more of this in just one second.
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	And we're going to get more into The insane push by the media to ratchet up racial tension, the inability of Joe Biden to ratchet down or the unwillingness of Joe Biden to ratchet down such tension will get into the NBA, essentially posturing and ending its season in order to accomplish some unspecified goal they have yet to name.
	We'll get to that in a second.
	First, in case you haven't tuned in this week, the RNC has had some really good stuff In terms of production value, in terms of actual content, it completely outpaced the DNC.
	I mean, the RNC is significantly better than the DNC.
	We're going to get to more of that in a little while.
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	So the narrative that has been promulgated, of course, the underlying narrative of America's systemically racist.
	Every iteration of a black person being shot is just another element.
	It's another brick in the wall for the case against America as an institution and as a system.
	This, by the way, is the open agenda of people like Ibram Kendi, who suggests that literally everything that goes wrong in America is due to America's systemic racism.
	And therefore, America's institutions must be pulled down from the top and from the root, must be just completely exploded.
	And if you don't do that, you're not anti-racist, which means you're a racist, because there are only two categories, racist and anti-racist, in Ibram Kendi's garbage view of the world.
	Well, this leads to some pretty predictable effect.
	People immediately jump on any incident without any evidence to immediately suggest that America is systemically racist, and then they go and they riot and they loot.
	So in Minneapolis, there was rioting and looting again in Minneapolis last night.
	There was looting in downtown Minneapolis.
	People were just breaking into stores in downtown Minneapolis.
	Why?
	What happened in Minneapolis last night?
	Well, the answer is there was a homicide suspect who shot himself.
	Okay, so what does that have to do with the cops?
	What do the cops do?
	Well, the cops didn't do anything.
	People were looting the sacks off 5th location until police dispersed the crowd with tear gas.
	Apparently, people were throwing bottles, setting off commercial-grade fireworks.
	There were reports of shots fired.
	Hennepin County Sheriff Dave Hutchinson said we got cops all over the Twin Cities coming out here to maintain order because the citizens of Minneapolis and Hennepin County deserve to feel safe.
	Apparently they had to stop the light rail service on the blue and green lines.
	They stopped trains and buses to downtown Minneapolis.
	People gathered around the scene in the aftermath of the suicide and then they just started lying and said that he was shot by the police.
	They looted the target, which is a great way of protesting racial injustice is by stealing.
	That's definitely the best way to do this.
	Governor Tim Walz, of course, doing an amazing job.
	He said, Minneapolis, it's time to heal.
	We must rebuild and recover.
	Dangerous, unlawful behavior will not be tolerated.
	The state patrol is headed to Minneapolis to help restore order.
	I remain in close contact with the city and every state resource stands ready to help bring peace.
	Oh, good.
	You know, months later.
	Well done, everybody.
	So what exactly happened in this case?
	There's a suspect who was followed by police in connection to a deadly shooting that happened just hours before at a parking ramp downtown.
	The guy shot himself.
	He killed himself.
	People showed up, they started lying and suggesting that this person who shot himself was murdered by the police.
	And then riots broke out and looting.
	Well done, everybody.
	Because you know what?
	Honestly, for the media, what's the difference?
	They won't cover the details of these shootings anyway.
	And when they do, it's always this post hoc rationalization whereby whatever the details of the case, the narrative has to be sustained.
	By the way, how bad do Minneapolis business owners have it right now?
	How badly do Minneapolis business owners have it right now?
	There's a story from the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
	In which they point out that business owners have been explicitly barred by the law from taking measures to protect their own businesses.
	According to Jeffrey Mitrat at the Star Tribune, quote, Minneapolis businesses fight ban on exterior shutters, owners wanting to protect their windows after riots face obstacle.
	Okay, so in other words, looters crash through windows and people started putting up exterior shutters on the outside of the building.
	But the city of Minneapolis has barred security shutters on business exteriors since 2004.
	Why?
	Because they said that the external shutters cause visual blight, and they create the impression that an area is unsafe and troublesome.
	Well, you wouldn't want to create that impression.
	I mean, let the business owners suffer.
	But you don't want to create the impression that things are going badly in Minneapolis by allowing people to put up shutters.
	Instead, why don't you create the impression that things are going badly in Minneapolis by allowing rioters and looters to shatter all the windows?
	Good call, everybody.
	Just well done all the way around.
	Well, shockingly, Democrats were silent about this completely at the DNC last week.
	They were completely silent about it.
	Like, not a word.
	Not a word.
	And for months, they've been putting out these extraordinarily tepid statements.
	No, we don't really like the violence.
	But!
	But!
	America is a systemically racist place and you have to understand what these people are going through, etc, etc, etc.
	Well, now it turns out that the polling sucks for Democrats on this.
	It turns out that Americans aren't real fond of watching rioters and looters in the streets.
	Including, by the way, many black Americans who live in the areas that are being rioted against and looted in.
	There's a public opinion poll that was done before the Jacob Blake shooting and events in Kenosha.
	And what it showed is a dramatic drop, a dramatic decline in the approval of Black Lives Matter protests.
	In early June, from June 14th to 18th, 61% of Americans said they approved of BLM, 36% disapprove.
	14th to 18th.
	There were 61% of Americans said they approved of BLM, 36% disapprove.
	By the beginning of August, those numbers were back to 48-48.
	In the aftermath of what's happening in Kenosha and Minneapolis, I can guarantee you this is going to drop into negative territory, which is where it should be since the BLM movement has accomplished zero things.
	I'm still waiting.
	What have they accomplished?
	The one thing that anybody tried to accomplish was Senator Tim Scott pushing a police reform bill, which was immediately filibustered by the Democrats.
	What's the thing they've accomplished?
	Other than ratcheting up racial tensions across the country, and making excuses for rioters and looters, and fiery things happening to burst out at protests all over the country.
	Black or Hispanic approval of BLM remains high, but white approval has fallen and become net negative, which is not particularly shocking.
	The levels of black and Hispanic approval have remained pretty steady throughout.
	But what did this drive?
	Well, it means that Joe Biden and the Democrats are starting to feel the pressure.
	They're starting to feel the pressure in places like Wisconsin.
	According to the New York Times, Wisconsin voters are looking at what's happening and they're saying, maybe I need to vote for Trump, so I'm not going to get blackmailed into supporting the very people who are trying to burn down my business.
	According to the New York Times, the politically calculated warnings of President Trump and the Republican Party about chaos enveloping America should Democrats win in November are reverberating among some people in Kenosha.
	First of all, I gotta love the New York Times coverage.
	It's politically calculated.
	It's not that it's an actual warning.
	It's always politically calculated.
	Republicans pounce.
	Republicans seize.
	You know how they would not be able to pounce or seize?
	If Democratic governors and mayors would shut this stuff down.
	But apparently, there are fears in the Democratic Party that rural areas of swing states like Pennsylvania and Michigan and Wisconsin aren't going to like all that much the Democratic penchant for making excuses for people who burn cities.
	And so Joe Biden had to release a statement yesterday.
	So finally, he releases an actual spoken statement.
	He's released some written statements before, extraordinarily tepid.
	He released a spoken statement, the first minute of which was dedicated to suggesting that the police in the Jacob Blake shooting were actual racists who were murdering black people.
	Without evidence, by the way.
	So it's so funny people.
	I saw some more conciliatory types on the right being like, well, at least Biden put out a statement.
	I'm so glad he finally condemned the violence.
	OK, if the first minute of what you're saying is that America is so systemically racist and terrible that black people are being shot willy nilly by the cops.
	And then you say, you know, but violence is unnecessary.
	Comply with the law.
	These are two conflicting messages.
	If you suggest that America is so inherently dangerous that black people are being systemically put under the knife, put under the boot of the jackbooted racist in charge of the police and the institutions of America, then when you buy it back five seconds later and you're like, well, yes, but if you elect me, then everything's better and the violence is unnecessary and it's not useful.
	Well, I have yet to see why, if you're a rioter and a looter, you would think that, considering that you've received nothing but downplaying of your violence and downplaying of your looting and warm coverage as protesters who are the best of America from many of America's chief political voices.
	Here is Joe Biden putting out a statement that is self-defeating and will accomplish nothing, but was cheered by the media as, well, now he's taking it seriously.
	Oh, really?
	Or is this just part of a tacit extortion scheme whereby Democrats basically suggest that if you elect them, they'll make the riots go away.
	But if you don't elect them, Then, you know, stuff happening in major cities.
	That's just the predictable result of an evil, evil America.
	What I saw in that video makes me sick.
	Once again, a black man, Jacob Blake, has been shot by the police in broad daylight with the whole world watching.
	You know, our hearts are with his family, especially his children.
	It's horrible what they saw.
	Watching your father get shot.
	Can you pause it for one second?
	OK, that's the part that people are going to watch first and foremost, right?
	It makes you sick to your stomach what you saw on that tape.
	Once again, a black man being shot in broad daylight.
	At no point here does he actually go through the facts of the case.
	At no point does he point out that Jacob Blake was resisting arrest, had an open warrant for two separate charges, including a felony.
	And when he went to his car, there was a knife on the floorboards.
	And no point does the factual pattern enter anywhere into this calculation for Joe Biden.
	It's just another example.
	of any time a bad thing happens to a black person, it's because of systemic American racism.
	And then he goes forward and he's like, but you know, you probably shouldn't riot and burn stuff because it's uncouth.
	It's uncouth.
	Yeah, I'm sure that's a message that's going to resonate.
	Well, yes, I'm sure that's going to stop all the violence.
	By the way, you know what stops violence on the streets?
	When you put protective forces on the streets to stop the violence.
	When you put the cops out there to stop the violence.
	When you suggest the police are systemically racist.
	And then you say, don't commit acts of violence.
	But the police are systemically racist.
	And they're the only people who are going to stop you from committing acts of rioting and looting and violence.
	What do you think is going to happen?
	You're literally saying the only people who can stop the acts of violence are the racists.
	That's what Joe Biden is saying right here.
	Okay, that's the tacit message.
	But don't worry, if he's elected, he'll heal it.
	All the police will magically become great people again.
	Here's Joe Biden then tepidly condemning violence.
	It's horrible what they saw.
	Watching their father get shot.
	Like Gianna Floyd.
	They're asking why?
	Why daddy?
	Protesting brutality is a right and absolutely necessary.
	But burning down communities is not protest.
	It's needless violence.
	It's needless.
	Needless is the word he uses.
	Right?
	If you're needed, then maybe it's okay.
	But it's needless.
	It's needless.
	It's not evil.
	It's not morally bereft.
	It's not disgusting to burn down businesses.
	It's needless.
	And it's needless because eventually you're going to elect me and I'm going to heal all this stuff.
	Joe Biden there.
	He's talking about Gianna Floyd, by the way.
	That would be the, what, the wife of George Floyd, I guess?
	The daughter of George Floyd.
	Sorry about that.
	So, just a quick correction there.
	Okay, so, all of this is calculated to lead to more violence.
	Because guess what?
	The Democratic agenda has now become extraordinarily clear, which is we will tepidly condemn violence from time to time, but we are not actually going to do anything to stop the violence in any real way.
	I mean, believe it or not, I'm not kidding you, the Virginia legislature Which is now a Democratic legislature.
	The Virginia legislature just passed a bill that would make it a misdemeanor.
	A misdemeanor to assault a police officer if the police officer was not hurt.
	I'm not kidding.
	This is in real time what the Virginia legislature is doing.
	The Virginia Senate, according to WSLS, passed a bill allowing assaulting a police officer to be considered a misdemeanor and removing a mandatory jail sentence.
	This is madness.
	It's madness.
	You're getting rid of penalties for assaulting police officers.
	You're suggesting that America is racist, stem to stern.
	And then you sit around, you're like, oh, well, you know.
	And if there's looting and violence, that's unnecessary, guys.
	Unnecessary.
	After all, you can just elect Democrats.
	By the way, Democrats have been running these cities for years, and I'm still seeing some looting and some violence and pretty significant levels of police interactions with the local population.
	So all this leads up to popular culture.
	So this message has now infused all aspects of our society, and you are not considered woke if you won't mirror the narrative of the day.
	And the narrative of the day is America is evil and systemically racist, and all bad and evil decisions by individuals are attributable to that evil American system.
	So all of this carries forward to the NBA.
	So the NBA is already having some pretty significant problems.
	The NBA didn't play for a while because of the pandemic.
	And then they created this bubble, which is a pretty smart idea, where they said, we're going to play all of our games in one place.
	But in order for you to watch the games, you have to swallow whole all the social justice crap that they're pushing, like America is systemically racist and evil.
	And listen, all these athletes have a right to speak.
	They're Americans, just like anybody else.
	That doesn't mean they know what the hell they're talking about or that what they're saying is good for the country.
	So, the NBA slathers its product in BLM messaging.
	Slathers it.
	I mean, they've got Black Lives Matter, huge emblazoned slogans, Bill de Blasio, Fifth Avenue style, on the sidelines of the games.
	They decide that all the players get to wear whatever social justice messaging, except for Free Hong Kong, they want to put on the back of their jerseys.
	So, you have Say His Name throwing up an alley-oop to equality.
	And there's been a thing inside the bubble.
	And Americans are not particularly interested.
	The ratings drop.
	They drop because, number one, if there's no crowd and you're playing inside the bubble, it's not as exciting.
	But number two, because a lot of people like me, who are sort of casual NBA fans, like, I enjoy basketball.
	I'll watch it if it's on, but I'm not going to, like, go out of my way.
	It's not the center of my universe or anything.
	A lot of casual basketball fans are like, nope, not going to do it.
	And in fact, for other sports, where I'm much more passionate, I also wouldn't do it, right?
	When MLB started the season with the, we're gonna kneel at the beginning and hold a black cloth while Morgan Freeman reads a social justice message poetry.
	I was like, you know what?
	I don't have to watch baseball.
	I'll find other things to do.
	I got kids.
	I got a life.
	A lot of people felt that way about the NBA.
	You end up killing your market when you decide that you're going to specifically alienate one aspect of the market.
	And yes, people have differing political views in the United States, and typically when they watch sports, they don't expect to be hit with political views.
	There are plenty of things on TV you can watch if you want to be political.
	You can watch this show.
	You can go watch Pod Save America if you disagree.
	There's plenty of stuff that you can watch, but mostly when people tune into sports, they're not particularly interested in the sporting product itself being slathered in this sort of stuff.
	I mean, this is perfectly obvious, and it's been obvious for a very long time.
	Again, doesn't mean athletes can't speak out.
	They can, but that also doesn't mean athletes know what they're talking about or that it is smart business to slather your product in this sort of stuff.
	Okay, so the NBA did all this.
	They played in the bubble.
	They created this COVID bubble where presumably everybody did not have COVID, which was, again, a smart move by Adam Silver.
	Then they slathered their product in a bunch of SJW crap.
	And people were like, you know what?
	Not so into it.
	And the ratings dropped something like 50%.
	Well now, LeBron James and the Lakers and the Clippers and the Milwaukee Bucks, basically, have decided that they're going to suspend the season completely.
	So according to CBS Sports, the Lakers and the Clippers pushed to end the season after the Jacob Blake shooting.
	The WNBA suspended all of its games yesterday.
	The MLB suspended a few of its games yesterday.
	Several of the leaders of the Lakers roster, along with some players from other teams, stayed up into the early morning hours to hash out their issues inside the bubble.
	As a result, there's optimism growing that players want to continue the playoffs, supposedly, but during a meeting Wednesday evening, the Lakers and Clippers were among the minority of teams pushing to end the season entirely.
	LeBron James said in the meeting he wants the team owners to be more involved and take action.
	So the Milwaukee Bucks walked out of their Game 5 against the Orlando Magic, and then the Orlando Magic walked out of the game.
	And then the Rockets and Thunder decided not to play.
	And then the Lakers and Trailblazers decided not to play.
	Okay, well, the background of this is a series of statements over the past 72 hours after the Jacob Blake shooting in which...
	Famous members of the NBA talked about how America was evil and terrible and black people live in abject fear of the police, which statistically speaking is not even close to true.
	81% of black Americans say they want the same number of cops or more cops in their communities.
	If you're talking about threats to black lives in the United States, the cops don't rank in the top 20 on that list.
	They're not the threat to black lives, at least not if those people are not committing crimes.
	If we're talking about innocent people who are not committing crimes, police are not really on that list.
	The police are the people who stand between law-abiding citizens and the criminals.
	They're putting their lives on the lines every day.
	Doesn't mean there aren't racist cops.
	There are some.
	Because there are racist people in all walks of life.
	Doesn't mean there aren't bad cops.
	There are some.
	The overwhelming, overwhelming majority of cops are people doing hard work to protect the law-abiding citizens of all races.
	But the narrative went out, and the narrative was that Jacob Blake was just another incident of evil American racism.
	So you get this.
	LeBron James, just because the man is very famous and very wealthy and very good at basketball doesn't mean he knows what in the hell he is talking about.
	Here is LeBron James, this is in the last two days, suggesting that sometimes cops wake up in the morning and they just want to shoot black people.
	He literally says this.
	He literally says this.
	This is crazy.
	This is a crazy thing to say, that cops get up in the morning.
	By the way, in major cities across America, a majority of the police force is minority.
	LA, where he lives, is a majority-minority police force.
	Hey, here's LeBron James suggesting the cops get up in the morning, just like, I feel like shooting a black guy today, and that's the real danger to black Americans, says the billionaire athlete who gets to play a game dribbling a basketball for a living, for entertainment.
	I mean, look, all right, here's LeBron James.
	You have no idea how that cop that day left the house.
	You don't know if he woke up on the good side of the bed.
	You don't know if he woke up on the wrong side of the bed.
	You don't know if he had an argument at home with a significant other.
	You don't know if one of his kids said something crazy to him and he left the house steaming.
	Or maybe he just left the house saying that today is going to be the end for one of these black people.
	That's what it feels like.
	I don't give a crap what it quote-unquote feels like to LeBron James.
	I care about the actual facts of the situation.
	Feelings don't matter here.
	The question is, are cops routinely leaving the house being like, I'm shooting a black guy today?
	That is such an abject, disgusting lie.
	It's such a disgusting lie.
	There's no evidence to back that.
	The implication that police officers are waking up in the morning like I'm shooting a black guy today is disgusting.
	It's disgusting.
	And it turns all black Americans into victims of the police, which is a lie.
	It suggests that the removal of the police is the solution, which is an even bigger lie.
	And it suggests that black people largely don't have agency in their own lives in the racist America that is, which is the biggest lie of all.
	Black Americans are the richest black people, ethnically speaking, on planet Earth.
	Black people who live in the United States.
	Black people can be successful in the United States.
	They are successful in the United States.
	The vast majority of black people are not living in abject poverty.
	The vast majority of black people make good decisions and get ahead in America.
	LeBron James is one of those people who has made those decisions in his personal life.
	And yet the idea is that he's living under the thumb of the white man in the United States?
	Seriously?
	Okay, so Doc Rivers said the same thing.
	Here's the coach of the Los Angeles Clippers.
	His father was a cop, by the way.
	Doc Rivers.
	And he talks extensively.
	He's talked extensively in the past about his father, and how his father talked about respect for the police.
	And his father said that certain cops were bad, and certain cops were good, and all of this.
	But here is Doc Rivers suggesting, we're the ones getting shot, we're the ones getting killed, the country doesn't love us.
	Really, Doc Rivers?
	You're underperforming your contract pretty dramatically here, and you're being paid about five million bucks a year.
	And it seems like you have a pretty good life.
	And it seems like the vast majority of people in the United States, if they do not commit crimes, don't come into conflict with the police generally.
	Here is Doc Rivers suggesting that black people are the ones getting shot and getting killed for no reason because the country doesn't love black Americans.
	I'm gonna need like an iota of evidence that the country quote-unquote doesn't love black Americans.
	Here is Doc Rivers.
	Yes, this was two days ago.
	All you hear Donald Trump and all of them talking about fear.
	We're the ones getting killed.
	We're the ones getting shot.
	Uh, we're the ones that were denied to live in certain communities.
	Um, we've been honed.
	We've been shot.
	All you do is keep hearing about fear.
	It's amazing.
	Why, we keep loving this country and this country does not love us back.
	What absolute nonsense?
	We keep loving the country and the country doesn't love us back?
	What evidence?
	We've had a black president in my, not in my lifetime, in the last few years.
	Until the last five minutes, Barack Obama was overwhelmingly elected twice.
	The most popular figures in America today are largely, largely, there are many black Americans.
	We're talking about Oprah Winfrey, Michelle Obama.
	We're talking about Barack Obama.
	We're talking about LeBron James.
	These are all extremely beloved people in American public life.
	Where is he getting this?
	Where is he getting this?
	Okay, this is not to suggest again that there is no racism in America.
	Of course there's racism in America.
	But as Nikki Haley correctly said, just because there is racism in America does not mean that America is racist.
	There's anti-Semitism in America.
	That does not mean that America is anti-Semitic.
	I've been the victim of anti-Semitism in America.
	It does not mean that America, broadly speaking, is anti-Semitic and that I'm a victim of an anti-Semitic system.
	So anyway, the basketball players decide to walk out, which by the way is a tactic that makes no sense at all.
	Like, literally no sense.
	So people are comparing this to Muhammad Ali giving up boxing because he didn't want to go into the army.
	So I have my quibbles with the fact that the Nation of Islam was using Muhammad Ali as a prop at the time, and the Nation of Islam was run by...
	Some pretty awful people.
	People who, by the way, murdered Malcolm X. In all likelihood.
	But in any case, putting aside the actual politics of what Muhammad Ali did, at least Muhammad Ali was quote-unquote boycotting the right people.
	He said, I don't want to go in the army because I don't want to fight the Viet Cong.
	OK, so he was taking an action that was directly correlated with the results he was seeking.
	I have a question.
	What exactly did the NBA players... Who are they boycotting?
	Well, they're boycotting the audience.
	And the audience is already largely signed off, so there's that.
	They're boycotting the owners who pay their salaries.
	Which makes no sense because the owners have, by the way, largely signed on to every demand they have ever made in terms of messaging on social justice and giving donations to various leftist organizations and all the rest.
	They're boycotting their own job, which doesn't make a lot of sense.
	I mean, I'm hearing a lot today about how LeBron James is making a sacrifice.
	Now, LeBron James is, quote-unquote, using his voice.
	It's just prerogative.
	But let's be real about this.
	The sacrifice that LeBron James is making is really the sacrifice of other players' careers, because LeBron James will be a first-ballot Hall of Famer.
	He's either the first or the second-best basketball player who has ever lived.
	He is going to make more money in the long run for the social justice activism that he is pursuing right now, as we saw from Colin Kaepernick.
	The people who are actually damaged inside the NBA, it's not LeBron James.
	LeBron James ain't taking the hit here.
	The person who's actually taking the hit here is the seventh man for the Milwaukee Bucks.
	It's the guy who's playing for the Orlando Magic way down there on the bench, who's playing on a one-year contract and needs to prove himself before his knees give out two years from now and he can't make money anymore.
	That's the one who's paying the price.
	LeBron ain't paying a price for this.
	LeBron is getting celebrated for this.
	So that doesn't mean that what he's doing is quote-unquote the wrong thing, morally speaking.
	He has a right to do whatever he wants to do.
	It's America.
	I think it's the wrong thing because I think that he's propagating a very bad and nasty message about the country and about police officers.
	But the idea that he's undergoing some sort of massive sacrifice by walking out, and by forcing, by the way, all the other players to walk out, because that's really what he does.
	Now the idea is that if you don't want to walk out, if you don't want to end the NBA season, then you're some sort of traitor to the social justice cause.
	So you have to sacrifice your career so LeBron James can push a message that he finds to be important.
	That's effectively what it means.
	The people who are going to pay, by the way, are the people in the NBA down the line who lose viewers, because a lot of casual NBA viewers are not coming back.
	They're not.
	The Lakers issued a statement.
	Their statement was, quote, We stand with our players and the players of the NBA in their demand for justice and the end of racial violence.
	Wow.
	You mean you don't want racial violence?
	Congratulations.
	You mean just like every other sentient human being in the United States, you don't want racial violence?
	By the way, have they called for a single policy?
	The only thing that I've heard from LeBron James is he wants the officers arrested in Jacob Blake's case.
	And he wants the officers arrested in Breonna Taylor's case.
	Well, you know it's a way that justice doesn't work in the United States.
	LeBron James demands someone arrested and they're arrested.
	Or Oprah Winfrey puts up billboards, and therefore, officers get arrested.
	And if that's the way justice works in America, that ain't justice.
	That's mob justice, and it's disgusting.
	You don't arrest people based on people screaming that they should be arrested.
	That's, by the way, what LeBron James has been saying.
	Many of these public figures have been saying, we need these officers arrested.
	When Derek Chauvin got charged with third-degree murder, and then Keith Ellison elevated it to second-degree murder, the charge against Chauvin, which, by the way, is going to be very difficult to sustain in court by the autopsy reports and the reasonable doubt standard.
	People cheered.
	They were like, oh, look at Keith Ellison.
	He's increasing the charge.
	That's so great.
	That's so great.
	Legal experts, note you.
	It's going to be extraordinarily difficult to convict Derek Chauvin of second degree, or it would've been a little bit easier to go for third degree if you actually gave a crap about the law.
	But you don't.
	All you care about is the virtue signaling.
	So the Lakers said 80% of NBA players are black men.
	Okay, by the way, if we're going to go by the diverse standard that population is supposed to be represented by percentage of demographic, then we should ask some questions about affirmative action in the NBA for people who are not black, presumably.
	That's the diversity standard, is it not?
	The end like I said, we cannot love them for the joy and entertainment they bring to the world, yet sit in silence and fail to use our platforms and resources to amplify their voices when they demand the justice and equality that America has promised us all, but denied black people for too long. In 2020 alone, we've been made to bear witness to the killings of numerous unarmed black men and women at the hands of police as well as private vigilantes. Brianna Taylor, George Floyd, Ahmed Arbery, and now Jacob Blake.
	These cases are not all the same.
	The Ahmed Arbery case is a legit murder case.
	The Breonna Taylor case is a case where the police had a legit no-knock warrant.
	They used the no-knock warrant, they were shot at, and they returned fire.
	It's a tragic situation.
	It is not a criminal one.
	The George Floyd case is going to be very difficult to prosecute, considering the man had enough fentanyl in his system to kill a horse.
	And the fact that he was saying he couldn't breathe before he was on the ground.
	You might be able to get that officer for assault.
	It's going to be very difficult to convict him of murder on just a basic causation standard.
	And Jacob Blake looks like a justified shooting.
	He disobeyed every police officer.
	He wrestled away from them.
	He apparently was tased and walked away.
	And then he bent into a car and they found a knife on the floorboards.
	But according to the Lakers, we must continue to say their names.
	But now is also the time for us to say enough.
	OK, well, I'll tell you what's going to happen.
	A lot of people are going to say enough to the NBA.
	A lot of people are going to say, you know what?
	You're entitled to your politics and we're entitled not to watch.
	This, of course, led to the pandering of Barack Obama.
	So Barack Obama tweeted out, quote, I commend the players on the Bucs for standing up for what they believe in.
	Coaches like Doc Rivers and the NBA and WNBA for setting an example.
	It's going to take all our institutions to stand up for our values.
	What change has been effectuated here?
	None.
	What policy has been changed?
	Zero.
	What exactly has happened here?
	Nothing.
	All that matters is the narrative because the narrative is a political weapon for particular points of view in the United States.
	Not a single thing has been accomplished other than the increasing nastiness of our political discourse and polarization around race.
	Joe Biden also put out a statement commending the NBA players.
	So Joe Biden's statement was similarly milquetoast.
	He said, this moment demands moral leadership.
	And these players answered by standing up, speaking out, using their platform for good.
	Now is not the time for silence.
	How about now is the time to discuss, you know, facts and solutions.
	Could we do that?
	Or are we just supposed to scream at the wind?
	And then when somebody else screams at the wind and walks away from their job in the middle of a pandemic, by the way, I'm glad for the NBA players that they have the ability to walk away from their jobs in the middle of a pandemic where people are literally not allowed to work.
	That's exciting for them.
	I'm glad.
	And again, they have every right to, made their voices heard.
	And we have every right to say that their voices are making very little difference in actually obtaining solutions and a lot of difference in terms of propagating narratives that are simply untrue about the United States on a broad level.
	So, okay, fine.
	So I guess a lot of people just won't watch the NBA.
	That's the way it's gonna go.
	Because everything has to be politicized, everything.
	Again, no one's saying that these basketball players can't speak out.
	No one's saying shut up and dribble.
	They're free to speak out.
	If they decide not to dribble, we don't have to watch.
	And if they say stuff we don't like, we also don't have to watch.
	And that's America, too.
	Especially if you're purveying the lie that America is a deeply evil and systemically racist place, and that every police incident is symptomatic of a deeper American evil that must be rooted out at the core.
	To which I think a lot of people are going to say, well, it seems like you're doing pretty well in this evil, terrible America, LeBron James.
	You're worth a billion dollars.
	I'm glad that you have the temerity to speak up against systemic American racism in an awful, evil, unfree system in which you're worth a billion dollars, but you don't have the temerity to stand up to the evil Chinese government that is subjecting people to brutality, violence, cruelty, and tyranny in Hong Kong and domestically.
	Takes a lot of courage.
	Takes a lot of courage.
	Alrighty, well, we'll be back here later today with two additional hours of content.
	We didn't even get to the RNC today.
	Suffice it to say, it was pretty good.
	It was pretty well run.
	The real RNC is what's happening in these major American cities where Democrats refuse to actually stop the violence and propagate American values instead of undermining them.
	We'll get to more of this later today with two additional hours of content.
	Otherwise, we'll see you here tomorrow.
	I'm Ben Shapiro.
	This is The Ben Shapiro Show.
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