Last summer, criminal mobs stormed federal buildings in an attempt to intimidate our elected officials and overturn our democratic republic. “Burn it down” and “No USA at all” were their frequent chants. Some demagogic politicians egged them on. People died.
Fast forward to last week. Another criminal mob stormed another federal building in another attempt to intimidate our elected officials and overturn our democratic republic. “Stop the steal” was their frequent chant. Some demagogic politicians egged them on. People died.
The media accurately reported last week’s riot as a riot, but they reported last summer’s riots as “mostly peaceful protests.” The reason for the disparate reporting is of course that the media sympathized with last summer’s criminal mob but not with last week’s criminal mob.
Never willing to let a crisis go to waste, an outfit here in Aspen called Aspen Journalism promptly sent out an email yesterday congratulating themselves for their “truth telling and the free exchange of ideas.” They went on to portray themselves as victims of the DC riot 2,000 miles away: “As journalists we were alarmed by the violence and menacing rhetoric directed at the media.”
Once they established their status as good people, and victims, they naturally leveraged it into a beg for free money. It’s very convenient. You can pay by credit card. You can even purchase extra feel-good by making an extra $0.30 donation to offset the credit card processing fee.
There’s another status they enjoy beyond their self-anointed status of being good people who’ve been victimized. They were granted 501(c)(3) status by the IRS back in the days of Lois Lerner who – no surprise – evidently didn’t perceive them as conservatives. So money given to them to support their partisan cause is tax deductible. In other words, it’s at the expense of you and me.
I have no direct experience with Aspen Journalism with a big “J” but I do have direct experience with Aspen journalism with a small “j.” After seven years serving as the token conservative for the Aspen Times, I became their most popular columnist.
That was not their plan. I was supposed to be a token, not a success. They never intended to provide a forum for a conservative who would actually have readers. They fired me a year ago with a Christmas Eve email. (Ironically, their readers later voted me “Best Columnist” in Aspen for 2020, though I’d been fired in 2019.)
The Aspen Times didn’t say they disliked my politics, of course, because that would reek of what it was – bias and censorship. Instead, they slanderously hinted at some kind of moral turpitude. They explained in the email that I did not align with their “values.” But it actually had nothing to do with values, unless you define “values” as synonymous with “liberal bias.”
I have a hunch they do.
The Aspen Times was flooded with letters to the editor objecting to my firing, only a small percentage of which they published. But no other journalist in the Aspen area said a word about it.
In particular, the crowd at Aspen Journalism said not a word. This outfit that prides itself on “the free exchange of ideas” was silent when the only person in the area expressing ideas contrary to the approved politically correct ones, was fired on Christmas Eve with the announcement that he had bad “values.”
The free exchange of ideas in this cloistered lib land of group-think evidently means the free exchange of liberal ones. For conservatives, there’s a price to be paid.
Fine. It’s the libs’ town, the libs’ newspapers, and the libs’ echo chamber. They can gag other voices as they please. But their self-serving, self-congratulatory hypocrisy gags us all in a different way. It makes us want to puke.
And perhaps makes us want to challenge that 501(c)(3) status.
That’s the state of the mainstream media in Aspen and nearly everywhere else. There’s no need to physically threaten them – and I unequivocally condemn any such threats – because they’re already destroying themselves with their own bias and incompetence. And they utterly lack the necessary introspection to save themselves.
the Aspen beat 
The day will come when Aspen will be “invaded” by the BLM and Antifa.
And Aspen Journalists will lay down in abject surrender & say, we apologize, & please tell us what can we do to atone.
Well here is some reporting on the scene and the Epoch Times is continuing the investigation: https://www.ntd.com/trump-supporters-stop-antifa-from-breaking-into-capitol_550268.html?fbclid=IwAR0BVasHO-D4IHJeDMbrcRgXdYsDq9N5n9oLckGsnwGbD648TekMLF_jB04
Wish I could watch this, but the video stream is very quickly “aborted” because it’s “incompatible with my browser” or something. Big Brother doesn’t like it.
When the guy wearing the Trump hat grabbed the militia looking guy and stopped him from breaking the window, the crowd cheered. That shows that the crowd was NOT to break stuff or over run the capital.
With biased media permanently entrenched; the liberal Academic world running a 3,000/1 (documented) lib profs to conservative profs, 2 branches of fed gov….I feel a bit like the Jews having had their their nation sacked and now I’ve been carried off to Babylon for 60 years. I may be among the Chosen, I may be on the side of Truth, I may be guaranteed survival but boy, the next 3000 years are sure full of hiccups. All I know for sure us I’m not alone and God loves and cares about me. That’ll work for now. Until someone accuses me of being with the wrong guy as I chew the fat around the charcoal fire….
Nice. Your final sentence is a reference to Peter?
Yes! What a weak man Jesus chose to lead His Church, look at the sinners He hung with… May I be numbered with them.
Just trying to center myself as the heathens gain rule.
Trump is a weak man indeed. And all the more glorious because of it. This is where I differ with Glenn’s previous column.
Throughout the spring and summer of 2020. we watched mobs rioting, looting, gutting and burning down buildings in cities all across America. Numerous people were killed and an estimated 20 Billion dollars of damage was done. Democrat political leaders remained silent. Democrat mayors and governors turned their backs on their own law abiding citizens who were losing their livelihoods, their lifework, and their neighborhoods to the mobs.
Meanwhile, Kamala Harris raised money to bail out the very few rioters who were even arrested. Biden said nothing until pressed months into the riots, finally condemning the violence. And then August came and Democrats found that the riots were hurting them in the polls, and magically, the riots stopped, i.e. it seemed that all along, the Democrats had been controlling (if not funding/encouraging) the riots.
An estimated five hundred thousand Trump supporters traveled to Washington DC last week, not to riot, but to voice their support for Trump, to civilly express their feelings about the stolen election and to thank President Trump for his four excellent years of service to our country. At most, a hundred or so of those supporters, i.e. less than a tenth of a percent, entered the Capital Building, acting like fools, being instigated by Anti-fa members who had posed as Trump supporters. But even this tiny percentage of Trump supporters, while being fools, were nevertheless not gutting, not burning, not looting not vandalizing and certainly not shooting. Also, whereas the Capitol Police had no problem controlling the far rowdier Leftist crowd who came to “protest” at the Kavanaugh hearings, somehow, mysteriously, the Capitol Police mostly stood by as the Trump supporters entered the building. The result of the intrusion? The hearings were interrupted for a few hours. The media’s characterization of this as an insurrection is absurd.
Not to mention that during the last 4 years, dozens to hundreds of ” progressives crashed into the Supreme Court and Russell/Hart office Bldgs, literally chasing and harassing reps, and , of course, that wasn’t described as insurrection, but as legitimate protesting.
The left is all about theft. They steal your money through dubious taxes for dubious help for dubious citizens. They steal any headlines that might be harmful to them. They steal demonstrations. They can even steal air as the walk into any situation, no matter how benign and suck all the oxygen out of the room.
The one product of Aspen Journalism that I’ve ever read was a reverential report on a lawsuit being lodged on behalf of The Colorado River as “a person,” deserving all the rights and protections that come with personhood. Rivers’ Lives Matter, I guess, and human agriculture can drop dead.
Such is the way the 20- and 30-somethings who control social media actually think, and I wish I could share your confidence that such media are “already destroying themselves.” The universities that are producing these people seem to be doing just fine.
One small quibble: Since the federal gov has begun massively conjuring money out of thin air it’s hard to argue that improperly withheld tax is ‘made up for’ by taxing others. Especially with Dems running the table the rule is going to be: the more they rake in, the more they’ll overspend. All tax avoidance – any way to not feed the beast – is in the nation’s best interest
TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION. Democrats are all about feelings,not law and order. BLM & Antifa gotta go!