Welcome Jimmy Duncan!
The Knoxville Focus is extraordinarily proud to welcome former congressman Jimmy Duncan as a regular columnist. We already have, in my opinion, the best line-up of columnists of any local newspaper and Jimmy’s column will be something for our readers to look forward to every week. For thirty years, Jimmy was the Second District’s congressman, following in the footsteps of his father, Congressman John J. Duncan Sr., who served for better than 20 years. Both Duncans stressed service to the people during their time in Congress.
Jimmy doesn’t want to write a column just about politics, but rather wants to tell our readers some incredible stories gleaned throughout his lifetime as the son of a mayor of Knoxville, his time as a judge of the Knox County Criminal Court, and his own time as our congressman. There’s nobody in the State of Tennessee who can match those experiences and I know you’ll enjoy Jimmy’s first column in this week’s edition.
We are awfully proud to welcome Jimmy Duncan to the pages of The Knoxville Focus!
Madison Cawthorne Is A Rising Star
One of the best performances during the Republican National Convention was from 25-year-old Madison Cawthorne. Cawthorne is the GOP nominee for the congressional seat vacated by White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. Meadows, the former congressman, was for some lady who was a good friend of his wife’s for the Republican nomination, but she lost to Cawthorne. After watching him speak from his wheelchair —the strapping young man is confined to a wheelchair after a terrible car accident in 2014—I can see why he won.
Cawthorne made some great points in his speech, telling Americans to, “Be a radical for liberty and be a radical for our republic for which I stand, one nation under God, with liberty and justice for all.” At that point, Madison Cawthorne arose from his wheelchair and stood behind a walker.
Apparently, that just flew all over Yamiche Alcindor, who poses as a journalist for PBS News. She also “contributes” to NBC and MSNBC, which should speak volumes as to her political views. To Yamiche’s credit, she doesn’t bother to hide her leftist bias. So, I suppose it shouldn’t be surprising good ol’ Yamiche posted a Tweet after hearing Cawthorne’s speech.
Yamiche typed, “Madison Cawthorn made it a point to stand, suggesting that all Americans to should stand during the pledge of allegiance & national anthem.
“It was a direct rebuke of actions by ppl — including black athletes who are currently sitting out games — protesting police brutality.” Well, ok, Yamiche and so what? Has it occurred to you Madison Cawthorne has a different point of view? Of course not and what would it matter anyway. Yamiche is likely one of those who is only for free speech if it’s her doing the talking.
Well, Yamiche’s whining brought down a storm of protests, including a blistering retort from attorney Jeff Blehar, who wrote, “How could you possibly turn the rather moving act of a … PARAPLEGIC rising for the national anthem into some weird BLM trip? My patience for takes like this has reached its limit.”
Ok, that was my “me, too” moment. I’ve reached my limit for takes like that as well. Have you?
Media Bias So Apparent
There’s nothing, not a single thing special about Yamiche Alcindor. In fact, she’s typical of the usual character in the mainstream media impersonating a journalist these days. Nothing matters except pushing the narrative, least of all the truth or the facts. That matters not at all compared to the narrative. I can’t compare it to anything other than media operating under an authoritarian government; those governments are hellbent on reporting narrative, not facts or the truth.
I’ve never seen anything like it in my lifetime. The news media—there’s just no other way to put this—just LIES while covering events in our country. They lie to fit things into the context of their own narrative. One good example was the coverage of CNN by “news correspondent” Oscar Jimenez covering the rioting in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Of course, the first clue is you’re never going to hear these folks refer to rioting. You aren’t going to hear the word “rioting” in mainstream media coverage of the “peaceful protesting” there, which has resulted in two car dealerships and other businesses being burned down to the ground.
Jimenez was filmed standing in front of a raging conflagration—a fire burning out of control—and beneath the alleged “reporter” was CNN’s banner info, which read: ‘FIERY BUT MOSTLY PEACEFUL PROTESTS AFTER POLICE SHOOTING.” Just so you don’t claim that coverage was a freak accident, Ali Velshi of MSNBC prattled about things in other protests earlier, saying they were not “generally speaking unruly” while a building went up in flames behind him. It’s just unbelievable, yet the mainstream news media expects you to believe every word of it; they expect you to believe them, which recalls the old joke by a comedian, who asked, “Who do you believe? Me or your lyin’ eyes?”
Chicago mayor Laurie Lightfoot weighed in on the shooting in Kenosha, while there were 66 shootings in the Windy City that weekend and 5 of those shootings resulted in fatalities. Do you read a word about that? Was there a single protest for anyone of the five lives lost in Chicago? Nope. Nor was there a single word uttered about the shootings in Chicago to my knowledge by Mayor Lightfoot.
We currently have governors, mayors and district attorneys who are refusing to enforce the law, violating their oaths of office. I don’t know of a single city where these things are occurring that are run by Republican governors, mayors and city councils. These are blue cities and the mayors and district attorneys simply ignore rioters burning and destroying property. The governors refuse to call in the national guard. Evidently, the governors, mayors and council people find it easier to merely step aside, push along the narrative that the protests are all peaceful and refuse to protect anyone other than the protesters. And there is more than a little blame to the folks who voted these pinheads into office in the first place.
The situation is out of hand and the press feeding on narrative rather than truth is highly evident in the Jacob Blake case, which has just been a nightmare from beginning to end. The fact a 17-year-old young man has now been charged with first degree murder never would have happened if any of these elected officials had done their jobs. It never would have happened if law enforcement had been allowed to do their jobs and prevented rioting and destruction of property. Kyle Rittenhouse was trained as an EMT and gave medical attention to some of the rioters and was twice attacked. Then he was chased by a mob and fell to the ground before firing shots. I don’t think that was a place for a 17-year-old to have been in the first place, but I wonder, if a leftist was being chased by an angry mob—after having been attacked twice—do you reckon he/she would fear for his/her life? Yet the media is going to jump to conclusions and it won’t be long before the usual narrative begins irrespective of the facts.
The notion it is peachy keen to burn down somebody’s home or business to protest what someone tells you is racism is just wrong. It’s an excuse and it’s against the law and it costs everyone, except for those who refuse to work for a living, money. Insurance isn’t some deep well of free money; it’s money paid into a company by ratepayers and the carnage in our streets is going to cause insurance rates for all of us to go up. Do the protesters care? Absolutely not, they don’t care.
The news media is clearly doing its best to enable lawlessness and that’s the truth, not a narrative.
Interesting Polling Results
The Democracy Institute, a Washington, D.C. think-tank, commissioned a poll which had some interesting results. When given the choice to choose between two phrases that better described their own thinking, 71% favored the phrase “all lives matter” while 29% preferred “black lives matter.”
77% of respondents said they did not consider Mount Rushmore—the iconic American display of four past presidents—to be “racist.” 76% of those responding to the poll said it made no difference to them if Joe Biden selected a minority as his running mate.
Now that I think about it, all those results go against the mainstream media narrative.
