Hey folks—I know not everyone gets a chance to catch Rush Hour live, so I’m going to start including a link to each episode right here in the blast. That way, if you missed the show or just want to hear it again, it’s only a click away – or check out my thoughts below.
VIEW HERE:
Look out for the Rush Hour link Tuesday – Saturday in your Daily BS email blast.
Sometimes a story changes when you learn what the jury never heard. That’s what caught my attention Friday in the latest turn in the Karmelo Anthony case.
Anthony is seeking a new trial after his conviction in the fatal stabbing of Austin Metcalf, and prosecutors have now brought forward disturbing evidence that wasn’t presented to the original jury.
And when I say disturbing, I mean disturbing.
According to the report we played on Rush Hour, Anthony allegedly sent threatening messages to a former girlfriend around the time of the killing. One asked how many bullets she wanted coming out of her chest. Another reportedly talked about stabbing somebody and licking the blood from the blade.
Then there was a message allegedly sent only about two hours before Metcalf was killed: “I’m low key on the verge.” On the verge of what?
That’s a question I suspect quite a few people would like answered. We also learned that Anthony’s former girlfriend allegedly reported to an assistant principal that he had been stalking her, while prosecutors described a history of fighting and a fascination with knives and guns. Now comes the remarkable part. The jury didn’t hear this.
Why? Because both sides had reached what was described as a “gentleman’s agreement.” The prosecution wouldn’t introduce Anthony’s messages, while the defense wouldn’t introduce damaging information about Metcalf’s juvenile history, including allegations involving graffiti, violence, bullying minority students and racial slurs.
So now we have information about both young men that was kept from the jury, and Anthony’s lawyers argue the agreement affected his constitutional rights and his decision not to testify.
I don’t know how the court is going to resolve that. But I do know this: It makes this case considerably more complicated than the tidy political narratives people have tried to build around it.
You have activists outside the courthouse demanding justice for Anthony. You have people who decided long ago exactly who the villain and victim were. And now we’re learning that there may have been significant evidence concerning both young men that jurors never considered.
That’s precisely when everybody should stop cheering long enough to let the evidence speak.
A young man is dead. Another young man was convicted of killing him. This isn’t supposed to be a political sporting event.
If Anthony is entitled to a new trial under the law, give him one. If his conviction was constitutionally sound, uphold it. But make the decision based on evidence and law rather than which crowd can shout loudest outside the courthouse. That shouldn’t be controversial.
Then again, this was a week in which “not controversial” apparently took a vacation. Which brings me back to Angie Nixon. I thought we’d heard enough from Florida’s newly nominated Democratic Senate candidate to understand where she stands. Apparently Angie had more.
Nixon confirmed that she supports Medicare for All.
Reparations? “Absolutely.”
She recently joined the Democratic Socialists of America and the Working Families Party, but when asked whether the socialist label might frighten voters, she essentially dismissed the concern.
“This isn’t about labels,” she said. “This is about people’s needs.”
Well, labels aren’t everything. Policies matter. And when those policies include Medicare for All, reparations, abolishing ICE and the rest of the agenda we’ve heard from Nixon this week, voters are entitled to notice that the label isn’t exactly being pulled out of thin air.
Remember where she’s running. Florida. This is a state with enormous communities of people whose families came from Cuba, Venezuela and elsewhere after experiencing various flavors of socialist government firsthand. Trying to sell democratic socialism in Florida is a little like opening a snowmobile dealership in Key West. Maybe you’ve got a fantastic sales pitch. But you’ve chosen an interesting market.
And Nixon isn’t alone. Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed supplied another revealing moment when he talked about taxing wealth. His formulation was fascinating: He would rather have a thousand millionaires than one billionaire.
Why? It’s not the government’s job to decide that somebody has accumulated enough money. If somebody creates a company that millions of people voluntarily use and becomes extraordinarily wealthy doing it, why should a politician get to announce, “That’s enough for you”?
El-Sayed suggested a wealth tax for people worth more than $100 million, asking, essentially, what somebody could possibly do with more money.
Whatever they want. It’s their money.
That attitude is what bothers me about this increasingly fashionable strain of Democratic economics. It isn’t merely about funding government. It’s about deciding that somebody else’s success has become morally suspicious. The language is always “fair share.” But nobody ever tells you when the share becomes fair. We already have a progressive income tax. Higher earners already pay an enormous portion of federal income taxes. Yet somehow the answer is always another tax.
More money for education. More money for health care. More money for poverty programs. And my question remains the same: What are we getting for the money we’re already spending?
America spends extraordinary sums on education, yet families in some of our largest cities are trapped in terrible schools. We spend staggering amounts on health care, yet practically everybody agrees the system is dysfunctional.
Government spends enormous sums fighting poverty, and then we discover fraud operations siphoning taxpayer money out of programs supposedly designed to help people who genuinely need assistance. At some point, shouldn’t somebody ask whether government is spending the existing trillions intelligently before politicians go shopping for another billionaire? Apparently that’s considered radical now.
Meanwhile, common sense got at least a temporary victory at the Supreme Court in the battle over construction at the White House. Chief Justice John Roberts allowed work on President Trump’s ballroom project to continue while the Court considers the administration’s emergency request in the litigation surrounding it.
Good. Keep building.
The larger question has always struck me as bizarre. The White House is the headquarters of the executive branch. Presidents host enormous events there. For years, major functions have required tents on the lawn or outside venues. Security concerns surrounding presidents and major government gatherings aren’t exactly theoretical anymore. Yet somehow an outside preservation organization and lower-court litigation have turned improvements to the executive residence into another constitutional crisis.
The National Trust for Historic Preservation certainly has every right to advocate for historic preservation. What it does not possess is a mysterious fourth branch of government granted by the Founding Fathers. Congress has its constitutional authority. The courts have theirs. The president has his. Not every disagreement with Donald Trump requires somebody to invent another veto point over the executive branch.
And perhaps that’s the common thread running through Friday’s show. We’ve developed an American habit of substituting politics for judgment. A criminal case becomes a movement. A billionaire becomes a villain because somebody else thinks he has too much money. A candidate embraces socialism and we’re told not to worry about labels. A construction project becomes another front in the eternal Trump war. Everything must immediately be sorted into teams.
Maybe we could try something revolutionary. Look at the evidence. Look at the results. Look at the policy. Then make up your mind. That’s what I’m trying to do every day on Rush Hour — although, admittedly, sometimes Angie Nixon makes it very difficult for me to maintain my composure.
There was plenty more in Friday’s fastest hour in American media, and some of it really needs to be heard rather than read. The Angie Nixon soundbites alone are becoming their own recurring feature, and my attempts to keep up with the pronunciations may eventually require professional assistance.
If you only have time for the substance, you’ve just read the heart of Friday’s show.
But the written version can’t give you the soundbites, the interruptions, the music, Karolos’ reactions or those moments when I begin a sentence with absolutely no idea where it’s going to land.
For that, listen to the full Friday edition of Bo Snerdley’s Rush Hour on the Red Apple Podcast Network.
It’s called the fastest hour in American media for a reason.
Rush Hour airs Monday through Friday and moves quickly through the day’s hottest political stories, breaking developments and media absurdities. It is the fastest hour in American media because there is always more happening than the legacy media has time—or desire—to explain.
And if you want my daily stack of news and commentary delivered directly to you, sign up for The Daily BS here. It is free, arrives daily and, unlike a New York Democratic event, questions are not removed for exceeding ideological capacity.
