Gavin Newsom miffed that right-wing tough guy Joe Rogan won't have him on his show.

Here's Joe Rogan, a 02:11:01, in a recent podcast:

Do you like people? I love people. I could never be a hermit. I love people. I love hanging out. Like I love having fun. I love meeting people that are fun. I love it. The only way that happens is if people make people. You have to make cool people. Yeah. Make cool people that other people wanna hang out with....

Joe's podcast is great because he's a cool person hanging out with cool people and he lets us sit in on that love and coolness. How does anyone get on Joe's show? I think it's by making him feel that you are a cool person who loves having fun that he could love having fun with.

Meanwhile, here's Gavin Newsom bitching about not getting an invitation onto Joe's show and revealing that he has no idea what makes Joe Joe:

How to argue that Trump is responsible for attracting assassins without catching hell for blaming the victim.

That's what the elite media commentators are working hard to figure out, I think, scanning the many headlines this morning. I tired of reading the commentary before even beginning, and I am also tired of the columns reacting to it.

So I'll choose one piece, on the chance that it might go a bit deeper. It's by Peter Baker in the NYT and the title suggests some sobriety and moderation: "Trump, Outrage and the Modern Era of Political Violence/The latest apparent assassination attempt against the former president indicates how much the American political landscape has been shaped by anger stirred by him and against him."

Excerpt:

At the heart of today’s eruption of political violence is Mr. Trump, a figure who seems to inspire people to make threats or take actions both for him and against him. He has long favored the language of violence in his political discourse, encouraging supporters to beat up hecklers, threatening to shoot looters and undocumented migrants, mocking a near-fatal attack on the husband of the Democratic House speaker and suggesting that a general he deemed disloyal be executed....

Mr. Trump’s critics have at times employed the language of violence as well, though not as extensively and repeatedly at the highest levels. The former president’s allies distributed a video compilation online of various Trump opponents saying they would like to punch him in the face or the like. Some of the more extreme voices on social media in the past day have mocked or minimized the close call at the Florida golf course. Mr. Trump’s allies often decry what they call Trump Derangement Syndrome, the notion that his critics despise him so much they have lost their minds.

Anger, of course, has long been the animating force of Mr. Trump’s time in politics — both the anger he stirs among supporters against his rivals and the anger that he generates among opponents who come to loathe him....

"We the people must decide whether we’re going to sustain a republic where reality is accepted, the law is obeyed, and your vote is truly sacred."

Said President Biden in his speech last night. 

I'm reading the transcript. He's talking about the midterm elections and he's saying the main issue is — not the economy, not crime, not abortion — but democracy itself, as if we can vote for democracy.

We participate in democracy when we vote. But how do you vote for democracy? Is he trying to say a vote for a Democrat is a vote for democracy, and a vote for a Republican is a vote against democracy?

We the people must decide whether the rule of law will prevail or whether we will allow the dark forces and thirst for power put ahead of the principles that have long guided us.

Is that on the ballot? I'd like "a republic where reality is accepted," but my President is raving about "dark forces." I presume he means that anyone who questions the accuracy of the voting procedures and vote counts is failing to "accept reality" and maybe also that people who think like that are part of the "dark forces."

We've kept quiet and waited patiently, and now what we expected to hear is announced.

The Wisconsin State Journal reports:

Madison police announced Friday morning that they were not able to corroborate allegations made by a Madison woman that she was burned by four white men in Downtown Madison in June in what was initially reported as a hate crime.

Althea Bernstein, 18, of Monona, told police she had a lighter fluid sprayed on her and was set on fire on June 24 by four white men after one of them yelled a racial epithet.

But in a statement Friday morning, Madison police said it is "closing the investigation into this case. After an exhaustive probe, detectives were unable to corroborate or locate evidence consistent with what was reported."

The U.S. Attorney’s Office and the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division came to the same conclusion, according to the statement....

In mid-August, I asked:

"Over the course of three years, the number of Americans who say that they feel justified in using violence to achieve their political goals has gone up from 8 percent to over 33 percent."

Holy s**t.

Over the course of three years, the number of Americans who say that they feel justified in using violence to achieve their political goals has gone up from 8 percent to over 33 percent. pic.twitter.com/JBg3Y83ASK

— Yascha Mounk (@Yascha_Mounk) October 1, 2020