One of Politico’s top legal minds apparently thinks that “robust” stand-your-ground laws entitle people to shoot anyone who knocks on the doors of their businesses. Not only does Josh Gerstein, Politico’s Senior Legal Affairs Reporter not understand SYG laws are and how they work, he’s also (apparently) ignorant of the fact that Minnesota is a “duty to retreat” state with no stand-your-ground law at all.
And this is the brilliant legal mind who job it is to share his insights and analysis on the rule of law and politics.
I can hear a collective sigh of relief from America’s law schools when they learn that Gerstein never got a JD. He’d be about as welcome as Jeffrey Dahmer at an annual alumni gathering. He is a Harvard grad though, just like other great minds like…David Hogg, proving yet again that was once a prestigious degree is now nothing more than a pricey piece of paper.
Gerstein displayed his legal ignorance and moral idiocy for all the world to see earlier this week in the wake of a viral report that exposed millions of dollars of widespread fraud by Minneapolis’s Somali population.
Breitbart has the story and all the gory details:
The top legal reporter for Politico.com apparently suggested Tuesday a person can be legally shot for asking questions at the doorsteps of businesses.
“At some point, the amateur effort to knock on doors of home daycares intersects with robust stand-your-ground laws,” said a X message from Josh Gerstein, Politico’s “Senior Legal Affairs Reporter.”
The threat was likely aimed at independent journalist Nick Shirley, who has precipitated a storm in the mainstream media about large-scale fraud and corruption by ethnic Somali business owners in Minnesota. Many establishment sites, including Politico, have ignored or downplayed the report, which has been widely reported on mainstream media sites and has reached more than 100 million views on X.
Legal Insurrection did a good job of analyzing Gerstein’s multiple epic failures . . .
[Gerstein] was responding to the explosive claims made by independent citizen journalist Nick Shirley and the revelations in his recent viral video exposing hundreds of millions in alleged fraud carried out by Somali-owned daycare centers in Minnesota. …
Liberal journalists support ‘Stand Your Ground’ laws now? That’s good to know, I guess. Of course, Democrat controlled Minnesota doesn’t have SYG laws, but let’s take one thing at a time. Baby steps.
The point here is that the media despises people who do their jobs for them, especially when it makes Democrats look bad. Also, the media will rush to attack and discredit anyone who poses a threat to the left. We have seen this repeatedly over the years.
The media really doesn’t like it when someone shows how easy it is to do their job. A job they refuse to do when it reflects poorly on people who share their political views and values. If a kid with an iPhone can do it and reach 100 million viewers, it reflects poorly on them and their expensive journalism degrees from places like Columbia and Northwestern.
Meanwhile, Shirley’s reporting exposing the Somali fraud seems to have made all the right people angry. He appeared on the PBD podcast and talked about death threats he’s received since his video went viral.
The Daily Caller News Foundation has more:
…Shirley detailed threats he has received, along with how his family has been affected.
“They’re saying, ‘You’re going to be Kirked … you’ll be the next Kirk.’ And it’s just like, are you kidding me? I hate what’s happening right now,” Shirley said. “I feel bad for my family, honestly, because we didn’t do anything wrong, and yet you guys are coming after me like I’m some sort of villain. My little sister is getting phone calls [from the news]. I’m like, why are you guys doing this?”
“Don’t talk to my family. I mean, some news in India, they doxed my home. They doxed my dad. It was really weird. And I haven’t even told my dad about that because I just don’t want to even bother him about it,” he added. “Are you guys kidding me? Why are you guys coming after somebody for going against fraud? I didn’t make this a right or left issue. I just showed you guys that fraud was happening. And now you guys are coming after me. You’re saying I’ll be the next Kirk. You’re literally stopping at intersections and coming after me and trying to attack me.”
Hey Nick…stuff like this happens when you do anything that might cut off the funding sources of bad actors. In Minneapolis and many other deep blue urban areas, certain people will kill over a hundred dollar holdup in a convenience store. Imagine what they’d do if you threaten the flow of tens of millions of dollars.
Let’s hope Shirley takes the threats seriously and gets himself some top notch private security, not to mention a gun.
It’s great that morons can post their idiocy for all the world to see and call out.
What’s not great and very sad is that they never acknowledge let alone learn from their public shaming and just go right on continuing to clown themselves, their schools and their professions.
The left wing response to anyone exposing their grift and fraud and wrong-doing is always ‘attack’ and slander and violence. Its an inherent trait of the left wing. I put some of the blame for this on these left wingers being indoctrinated in a ‘learing’ education environment, the rest is just plain ‘no idea of reality’ mental illness – like the phrase ‘Learing Center’ there is something missing in the mental health of these left wingers.
Left wing media and politicians ignored this fraud that’s been going on for years, and left wingers were happy with it, heck left wing congress critter ‘married-her-brother to defraud immigration’ Ilhan ‘I pledge allegiance to Somolia and hate America’ Abdullahi Omar even supported it (and was involved in making it happen)… and in one day a 22-23 year old youtuber, a citizen-independent journalist with an iPhone, knocked on the doors of the very obvious and tore it all down for for them.
I would comment on this story but my comments never seem to appear here anymore.
Josh Gerstein is a solid left winger. He is a known anti-gun, known anti-self-defense, known anti-2A, known anti-constitution, known pro-illegal alien, known anti-conservative, known pro-Marx*ist, known pro-‘progressive’ democrat, person. He’s doing what the left wing does, manufacture absurdity as justification then spin it as a means to get people riled up and maybe do it.
You would think a ‘Senior Legal Affairs Reporter’ would know what SYG laws actually are – his comment does not reflect that he has even a slight understanding of SYG, but that’s not uncommon for anti-gun people like this. However, the fact that he would even suggest this is troubling. Hes manufactured an absurdity as justification then spins it as though its fact you can do it while at the same time prompting, basically, ‘hey, you fraudsters, the next time someone shows up to expose you and knocks on your door simply shoot them’ and the left winger mentally ill and morons actually listen to this kind of stuff and seriously think about doing it or do actually do it, be is said by someone else or they imagine the ‘wrong’ in their own minds (like Charlie Kirk’s murderer did, ‘words I don’t like, so I will kill you’).