If the press doesn't like being called "FAKE NEWS," they could maybe stop doing this...

Almost every gun nut in the U.S. of freakin' A knows what the Knob Creek Gun Range in Bullitt County Kentucky is. They all know what it's famous for.  A lot of'em have been there just for the opportunity to "oooh" and "ahh" at awesome displays of firepower like that displayed in the video that appeared and went viral Sunday night. Unfortunately for ABC, it went viral for the wrong reasons.

So why did ABC News think they could get away with hijacking a video of a Knob Creek show finale and pawn it off as footage of an attack half the world away from Knob Creek?

I have a theory that makes perfect sense. The producers, technical staff and copy editors at ABC have never been to Knob Creek, or any gun range anywhere in the country. They've never held a gun, much less fired one. Because they live, work and recreate in their little concrete bubble of the urban echo chamber, they think everyone living out here in the real world is just like them.

They all live in the same kind of apartments. They all ride the same trains, stop at the same Starbucks, eat at the same Chipotle, yack on the same phones, listen to the same music and hit the same websites and use the same apps. They all like the same pictures, downvote the same posts and block the same trolls. They're automatons.

So when they went to Youtube or Vimeo for some footage they could use in a story about how bad orange man was getting people killed in Syria, they ran across the Knob Creek Gun Shoot from 2017 and said "wow... I've never seen anything like this before. It only has a few thousand(!) views so no one we know will know what this really is!"

By doing so, they played right into the "FAKE NEWS!" narrative, thereby reinforcing everything Donald Trump and smart Republicans have been talking about since the media stopped worrying about objectivity during the Clintonista Regime of the 1990's.

The news media really, really dislike being called out with  the "FAKE NEWS!" rant. They are their own worst enemies when they make unforced errors like this. They're incapable of helping themselves. Their echo chamber is so tight that when Beto O'Rourke talks about confiscating semi-automatic rifles, all of the millennials in the room are shocked when the hunters and ranchers in Arizona, Iowa and Pennsylvania go berserk and turn red. When Pocahontas says "Medicare for All!" the retirees in Florida go red with rage at the prospect of a youngster jumping to the front of a line they worked decades to be the head of.

ABC has apologized online for running the segment, but not on the air, or during prime time. Even if they did an on-the-air mea culpa, they can't un-ring the bell. This will be coming to a small city/small town/farm community near you. It will live for a very long time.

FAKE NEWS! pic.twitter.com/ta8ii8yetP

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 16, 2019

As you may know, President Trump decided last weekend to pull U.S. Special Forces out of a hotly disputed area between Turkey and Syria that had also been fought over by Kurds. This group has long sought an independent homeland and have been willing to fight for it for a very long time. From time to time, they have been U.S. allies in the fight against Al Qaeda, ISIS and Syrian forces backed by Russia and Iran. Turkey, Syria and Iraq have all had their issues with the Kurds. Turkey in particular has had a long and violent history with ethnic Kurds--they were a major part of the old Ottoman Empire before and during World War I. The Ottomans used Kurds extensively as part of their irregular forces called the Bashi Bazouks. Modern Turkey emerged from that war as an independent state, and the Turkish people have long memories of atrocities committed by the Bash Bazouk "terrorists" during the centuries of Ottoman rule.

Asia Minor is a seething hotbed of conflict and has been that way for centuries. Peace has traditionally been maintained from the Levant up through The Dardanelles and over through the Caucasus region by brutal force. It's a mix of ethnic friction, tribal feuds and turmoil. It's the main corridor of commerce between western Europe and Asia proper since antiquity. And... there's lots of petroleum in the area. "Regime change" conflicts are not new. They're baked into the area's daily bread.

Was Trump right or wrong to get U.S. Special operators out of there? We don't know, but the area of concern was going to be fought over sooner or later, whether our guys were there or not. Keeping them as a buffer between people who have hated each other since before this country was even a good idea... maybe not a smart bet. The issues are much too complicated for a bunch of young, pampered and insulated American urbanites to even understand. No wonder this "FAKE NEWS!" video popped up.

New Urbanism coming to Mobile? Over my dead body

At yesterday’s annual Downtown Mobile Alliance annual meeting, an advocate for government control over where you choose to live, how you choose to build and how you choose to work stood before a crowded ballroom and… received applause.

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MOBILE, Ala. -- Renowned city planner Andres Duany stood Thursday in front of a ballroom filled with some of the most powerful people in Mobile and told them that 70 to 80 percent of the city’s development is not only bad, it’s a threat to the area’s economic viability.

“Twenty or 30 years from now, Mobile won’t have a future,” he said, unless the city drastically rethinks its growth patterns.

Duany’s speech, peppered with humor and hard truths, was the keynote address at the annual meeting of the Downtown Mobile Alliance.

The group sought out Duany in the hopes of sparking renewed interest in New Urbanism-type city planning, which seeks to boost land values while creating walkable, eye-catching communities that meld retail space, offices and dwellings.

Duany helped pioneer New Urbanism in the 1980s.

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Instead of being applauded, this man should have been laughed out of town.  In fact, I am appalled that he was even invited to speak, and I wonder what’s happened to the sensibilities of Mobile property owners.
“New Urbanism” is an innocuous term describing a movement that can only succeed through more statist control over private property. It is a fad among the progressive elite that demands mixed-use development, high-density housing and pedestrian-friendly design. In other words, it’s all about cramming as many people and businesses into the smallest space possible.
The Press-Register article on yesterday’s speech summarizes Duaney’s argument for having statist planners take over how development occurs at the most intimate level—local government:

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• Demographics: Subdivisions isolated from all else except by car will become like prisons, Duany said, as baby boomers grow older and have harder times driving. Many young people have no interest in buying the suburban homes that they grew up in. Their parents might have liked a big yard and a two-car garage, but the next generation doesn’t, he said. “The suburbs hold no magic for them.”
• Gas prices: The world’s supply of easily extractable oil is dwindling. As energy companies spend more money getting oil out of the ground, customers will have to spend more money getting gas out of the pump. Long commutes will become more and more expensive, he said.
• The financial crises: Governments are strapped for cash. The age of massive spending on interstates so commuters can have “superhighways to Starbucks” is gone, Duany said. Likewise, the expense of maintaining a car for everyone in the household over the age of 16 will become unaffordable.

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These ideas seem to make sense, until you really think about what’s being said here.  He’s trying to make the case that local communities shouldn’t allow people to move out into the suburbs and build big, roomy houses on big, sprawling lots because their offspring “have no interest” in buying these estates after you retire. Gas prices will get so high that long commutes will get too expensive, so government shouldn’t allow people to move out to the ‘burbs.  Governments are “strapped for cash” and won’t spend more money on better transportation infrastructure, so they’ll have to keep people from moving too far out; from sprawling.
There’s only one way to achieve the New Urbanist Utopia, and that is through government coercion. You see, you silly un-nuanced peasant, you aren’t making “smart growth” decisions on your own.  You need to be told how to grow, how to build, and how to live your life. It’s all statist nonsense and it needs to be recognized for what it is.  It has no place in a free society, and it certainly has no place on the Alabama Gulf Coast.
One of the great things about living in the State of Alabama is that aside from the basic,  necessary zoning and building codes needed to keep people from building unsafely, state and local governments here pretty much leave you alone.  If you want to buy a couple of acres in western or northern Mobile County and build a 3,500 square-foot comfort castle for your growing family, you’re pretty much free to do so.  You can have a pool.  A large garden.  Maybe even a small putting green to help your handicap. If you want it and you can afford it, you can have it. Freedom-loving Americans like their elbow room.  But if the New Urbanists have their way, you’ll have to do without it.  You’ll have to settle for a 1,200 square-foot “energy efficient” cottage on a lot the size of a postage stamp and if you want a cup of coffee, a six-pack of beer or a loaf of bread, you’re gonna have to walk to the store to get it.
Governments will be “strapped for cash” because they will be forced to pay for crushing entitlement programs like government-mandated healthcare, maintaining payrolls for employees administering ever-more bloated programs and paying for unmanageable pensions.  It’s not because they’re building too many roads that Duaney cutely calls “superhighways to Starbucks.” If we want to address an infrastructure problem, let’s start with making infrastructure the priority, rather than buying votes through direct transfers.
Mobile County has an excellent and successful Pay-as-You-Go road construction program that has built good quality roads throughout the jurisdiction, and the state Department of Transportation has been a very good non-federal cost sharing partner with US DOT in improving the area’s federal and Interstate highway system.  Rush hour traffic in Mobile along I-10, I-65 and I-110 is a virtual breeze compared to heavily planned and heavily regulated areas like Atlanta and Birmingham.  We don’t have a traffic problem here, because years ago, a bunch of stupid, redneck hicks on the County Commission decided to make infrastructure a priority.
If this New Urbanism  foolishness even looks like it’s gaining a foothold in my hometown, I will mobilize and organize a property-owners revolt against it.  I will organize and raise money for a local political organization that only supports candidates who believe in personal freedom and property rights.  That organization will make local politicians take a stand, one way or the other, on whether Mobilians should have the right to build whereever and however they want to. 
This town is not Portland, Oregon, and it will move in that direction over my dead body.
Gimme some feedback in the comments.