E249. The Three Whisky Happy Hour: Riot Season Opens Early

Published: April 17, 2021, 4:56 p.m.

Good grief! “Lucretia” and I take a week off, and everything goes to hell. Minneapolis starts rioting again, and Democrats in Washington start their own riot over court-packing. Meanwhile, the officer who mistook her service revolver for a taser and shot Daunte Wright was publicly identified within 48 hours (Kim Potter), lost her job, and now faces criminal charges, while we have passed Day 100 since Ashli Babbit was shot in the U.S. Capitol on January 6 without learning the identity of the person who fired on her. Although the DC Coroner ruled that Babbit’s cause of death was a homicide, the Justice Department says no charges will be filed, and our supine media seems to have forgotten their own question about “the public’s right to know.” Strange times.

Anyway, we look at the riot question through the lens of Edward Banfield’s classic chapter in The Unheavenly City, “Rioting Mainly for Fun and Profit,” and end this episode with the suggestion that classic rock may yet save us all.