The aftermath of the Derek Chauvin trial, got me to thinking about the old Adventures of Superman TV show.  Superman, you will recall, was a  newspaper reporter, until he ducked into a phone booth (I wonder where he would have to duck nowadays) and emerged as the Man of Steel.  In each episode, the announcer intoned, “Superman, who can change the course of mighty rivers, bend steel in his bare hands, and who disguised as Clark Kent, mild-mannered reporter for a great metropolitan newspaper, fights a never-ending battle for Truth, Justice and the American Way.”  You might well ask, “What does the Superman show have to do with events surrounding the Chauvin trial?”  Well, it occurred to me that Superman’s being a news reporter was important.  If the American way is the rule of law, there can be no justice without truth.  Superman reflected a reality that, sadly, no longer exists.  We once had crusading journalists who exposed crime and corruption.  They literally spoke truth to power by discomfiting the comfortable.  Think of newspaperman Dutton Peabody in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence, “I’m a newspaperman, not a politician!  No, politicians are my meat – I build ’em up and I tear ’em down but I wouldn’t be one, I couldn’t be one – it’d destroy me.”  And that’s the way it used to be.  Remember when 60 Minutes chased crooks and liars around with cameras to expose them?  Now they’re just the mouthpieces of the Left.  In short, they’re politicians, and Dutton Peabody was right, it has destroyed them.  Instead of speaking truth to power, they’re feeding lies to an ignorant public.  I say ignorant, not to insult the public, it’s not their fault.  The public must be educated and informed by schools and the media.  The public is ill served by schools that indoctrinate instead of educate, and by a media that suppresses information, rather than disseminating it.  That’s not just rhetoric, witness the words of NBC’s Lester Holt, “I think it’s become clear that fairness is overrated. … The idea that we should always give two sides equal weight and merit does not reflect the world we find ourselves in.”  Holt was given the Edward R. Murrow Award.  That spinning sound you hear is coming from Ed Murrow’s grave.  As this is written, NBC has altered video of a shooting in Ohio to make it appear the police officer was at fault, fanning the flames of the systemic racism fantasy.  Meanwhile, real journalists like Andy Ngo and James O’Keefe of Project Veritas are denounced as extremists, silenced, and de-platformed on social media.  I rest my case.  Journalism, Rest in Peace.  But let’s get back to the Chauvin trial.  My complaints don’t extend to the verdict.  That Chauvin was convicted of homicide was just.  I thought it should be manslaughter, and I have serious concerns about how Minnesota got to second degree murder, but forgive me, picking apart convictions is what I do for a living.  Without getting too deep into the legal weeds, second degree murder is an unintentional killing while committing a felony.  The underlying felony was an assault on George Floyd.  The notion that an assault that ends with a death forms the basis for felony murder is what’s known in the law as “bootstrapping.” The New Jersey statute wouldn’t permit that, but Minnesota isn’t New Jersey, and I’m not a Minnesota lawyer, so who knows.  The bottom line is that, while the police had every right to arrest George Floyd, who was high on drugs and passing counterfeit currency, they had no reason to kill him.  So the Chauvin guilty verdict is just.  What’s troubling is the atmosphere created by Democrats and the media before and after the verdict.  These are people who support defunding the police, and celebrate a system of “justice” in which armed robbers are released without bail, while unarmed Capitol trespassers remain incarcerated.  They want police officers fired and prosecuted for doing their jobs, yet they excuse months of arson, looting and violence as “peaceful protest.”  Before the Chauvin verdict, alleged comedian Chelsea Handler (Who?) wondered why a trial was necessary when we had a video of the crime being committed.  The concept of due process clearly eludes this dolt.  But it’s not just mindless performers.  In the wake of the Brooklyn Center, Minnesota shooting, the city manager was fired for daring to suggest that the police officer involved should be given due process of law.  This is sick, and dangerous.  Consider words attributed to Thomas More, “I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake.”  Good advice.  “Protesters” craving “justice” will find precious little of it absent due process.  Then there was Maxine Waters.  She impeached Trump for telling supporters to peacefully protest, she preaches defunding the police, and she demands that U.S. taxpayers pay for her police protection.  She went to Minnesota to pour gasoline on a riot, saying, if the Chauvin verdict “goes the wrong way, we’ve got to stay in the streets and fight for justice.”  Maxine threatened the jurors and the entire legal system, prompting the trial judge to warn that she handed Chauvin an appellate issue.  Segue to post-verdict comments.  Senile Speaker of the House Pelosi  thanked George Floyd for “sacrificing your life for justice,” and said “your name will always be synonymous with justice.”  Here’s where some truth might have helped, perhaps to point out that Floyd’s previous relationship with justice included only convictions for selling drugs, theft and armed home invasion.  He shouldn’t be dead, but this was hardly the murder of Gandhi.  Message to Nancy, the 343 firemen and 71 policemen killed on 9/11 gave their lives, Floyd’s was taken.  Even liberals denounced Pelosi, and a Maryland politician called for a black Speaker.  So much for pandering.  As Winston Churchill said, “An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.”  Last, and certainly least, comes Corrupt Demented Imbecile Joe Biden, who’s been in “the System” for 50 years, and said the verdict, “can be a giant step forward” for the nation in the fight against systemic racism.  Brain damage.  Biden told Floyd’s daughter her “daddy did change the world.”  It’s a pity he never cared enough to change himself.  45 cops have been shot and 11 killed since January.  Biden never called their children.  A Louisiana cop was killed last week, after telling a man he had to wear a mask at a basketball game.  The man shot him.  Another Covid death.  Biden didn’t call his family.  The point is that there will never be justice until the media and elected officials decide to tell the truth.  Providing the unvarnished truth to the public prevents violence, and protects lives and property.  The media should tell the truth, and officials have a duty to do so.  They might start by telling the “protestors” chanting “all three counts,” that Chauvin can get only one sentence, not three, for killing Floyd.  That’s the law.  Simply put, without truth there is no justice and no American way, or any other way.