Crime

Bernie Sanders: Abortion Is 'Choice' But Death Penalty is 'Murder'
By Mark Finkelstein | November 1, 2015 | 11:12 AM EST

I took it for granted that a leftist like Bernie Sanders would be opposed to the death penalty. Still, I was truly shocked to see Sanders—not in some throwaway comment on the campaign trail but in prepared remarks on the Senate floor—flatly call the death penalty "murder." On his MSNBC show this morning, Al Sharpton played the clip to illustrate how Sanders is working to differentiate his policy positions from those of Hillary Clinton, who says she supports the death penalty in "rare" cases.

Question: how can we begin to explain the moral compass of liberals like Sanders who call imposing the death penalty on adults duly convicted of heinous crimes "murder," but refer to the killing of innocent, unborn babies as "choice" or other grotesque euphemisms like "women's health?"

NY Times Worries About 'Ableist Oppression' in Sex Assault Conviction
By Michael McKinney | October 27, 2015 | 12:39 PM EDT

In Sunday's New York Times Magazine, the cover story by Daniel Engber focused on the recent criminal proceedings involving Anna Stubblefield. Stubblefield has been charged of sexually assaulting a African-American disabled man. Anna Stubblefield, a philosophy professor at Rutgers, was accused of assaulting D.J., a severely disabled man she assisted with “facilitated communication.”

CNN's Brooke Baldwin Objects to Guest Calling Michael Brown 'Thug'
By Matthew Balan | October 26, 2015 | 5:06 PM EDT

On Monday's CNN Newsroom, Brooke Baldwin rebuked a guest who bluntly labeled Michael Brown a "thug." Former DEA agent David Katz underlined that Darren Wilson was "by all accounts, a good police officer — did exactly what an officer is supposed to do. He was set upon by a thug named Michael Brown, who just moments before, strong-armed an Indian-American half his size." Baldwin interjected, "Come on, though. We don't need to call — let's not — 'thug'?" Katz retorted, "What epithet would you charge?" The anchor replied, "Let's just say 'Michael Brown.'"

MSNBC Guest: Kate Steinle Killing 'Equally Tragic' to O'Reilly and Trump 'Scapegoating' Illegals
By Brad Wilmouth | October 26, 2015 | 12:29 AM EDT

Appearing as a guest on Friday's MSNBC Live with Jose Diaz-Balart, San Francisco Board of Supervisors member David Campos defended his city's decision to keep its sanctuary city policy, and, as he began his defense, he absurdly claimed that, although the killing of Kate Steinle by an illegal immigrant was "tragic," that it is "equally tragic" that people like Donald Trump and Bill O'Reilly  "scapegoat" "undocumented immigrants."

CBS’s Dickerson Desperately Tries to Defend ‘Black Lives Matter’ Movement
By Jeffrey Meyer | October 25, 2015 | 1:11 PM EDT

During an interview with New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, Face the Nation moderator John Dickerson rushed to defend the Black Lives Matter movement after the Republican presidential candidate criticized the group for calling for the murder of police officers. After Christie said Black Lives Matter should not be “justified” over their anti-police rhetoric, the CBS anchor tried to defend the movement as a whole and argued that only “individuals have” called the for the murder of police. 

CNN's Tapper Presses PLO Official on Palestinian Incitement Against Israelis
By Brad Wilmouth | October 22, 2015 | 10:47 PM EDT

On Wednesday's The Lead with Jake Tapper, CNN host Jake Tapper devoted attention to Palestinian incitement of violence against Israelis in a way rarely seen in the dominant media as he pressed PLO official Maen Rashid Areikat about recent stabbing attacks against Jews.

Halperin: 'Let's Be Honest, a Lot of FBI Agents Don't Like the Clintons'
By Mark Finkelstein | October 19, 2015 | 8:47 AM EDT

Joe Scarborough says there's an effort underway to delegitimize the FBI investigation of Hillary's email. Did Mark Halperin just abet that effort by alleging that FBI agents conducting the investigation are driven in part by personal animus toward the Clintons?

Appearing on today's Morning Joe, Halperin said that "of all the entities in the United States that represent a threat to Hillary Clinton being the next President of the United States, those FBI agents are probably in the first tier, in part because they're following the evidence wherever it leads, but in part because—let's be honest—a lot of FBI agents don't like the Clintons. View the video, and be sure to watch to the end to catch Hillary cackling in response to Jake Tapper's questions about the email.

Press Mostly Ignores Hillary's Praise of Australia's De Facto Gun Confiscation
By Tom Blumer | October 17, 2015 | 11:21 PM EDT

The establishment press is mostly ignoring what Hillary Clinton said about gun control at a New Hampshire town hall meeting on Friday morning. Searches on "Clinton Australia" (not in quotes), attempting to find her statement that a massive, coercive gun "buyback" such as that seen in the Land Down Under almost 20 years ago "would be worth considering doing it on the national level," indicate that the Associated Press has nothing, and that the New York Times web site has nothing. Related Google News results are overwhelmingly from center-right blogs and outlets.

Of the two exceptions I could find as of 10 p.m., one came from CNN. The other was a syndicated story from the New York Times which hadn't yet appeared at the Times's web site. Predictably, both are "conservatives attack" pieces which cherry-picked the NRA's criticism of Mrs. Clinton's remarks.

Salon Writer: To Get a Gun, You Should Have to Take a Bullet
By Tom Blumer | October 17, 2015 | 8:17 PM EDT

D. Watkins has written at Salon.com for about 1-1/2 years.

In his previous columns, he has shown that he fits right in with the "white privilege and oppression of blacks explains everything" crowd. Friday (HT Twitchy), he went into uncharted territory, seriously suggesting that no American should be able to own a gun until they "know the pain of getting hit" (bolds are mine):

By Jumping in, Biden Might Free Obama to Release the Hounds on Hillary
By Mark Finkelstein | October 17, 2015 | 12:12 PM EDT

The conventional wisdom is that Joe Biden has been staying on the sidelines, waiting to see how bad the email scandal gets for Hillary. But while that might be true, consider that Biden need not just be a passive player in the game. There is a plausible theory by which Biden's entry into the race by its very fact would increase the odds of Hillary encountering legal travails.

One reason that President Obama might be holding off on having his DoJ go after Hillary is that he doesn't want to destroy the candidacy of the only plausible Dem candidate in the race.  As brilliant and charismatic as is Lincoln Chaffee, still he might just not do.

Salon: Ted Cruz Encourages Domestic Extremism and Terrorism
By Michael McKinney | October 16, 2015 | 2:06 PM EDT

On Friday, Salon featured two articles taking fire to presidential candidate Ted Cruz. Authored by Heather Digby Parton, one piece was titled, “Paranoid Rise of the Militant Right: Inside the Growing Threat of Domestic Extremism” and examined the Department of Justice’s new focus on domestic extremists, and the author zeroed in on right-wing extremism. The second was written by Simon Maloy, who offered the slippery-slope argument against Cruz under the title, "Ted Cruz's Crazy 'Jackboot' Talk: When Inflammatory Rhetoric Starts Getting Dangerous."

Mike Barnicle: Ben Carson a ‘Political Nut-Boy’ Who’s ‘A Few Quarts Short of a Gallon’
By Tom Johnson | October 14, 2015 | 10:27 AM EDT

For nearly three decades, Ben Carson was the head of pediatric neurosurgery at one of the world’s best hospitals. To MSNBC panelist Barnicle, however, Carson is a “political nut-boy” who reminds him of a patient at a certain type of hospital.

In a Monday Daily Beast column, Barnicle opined that Carson is “out there on the fringe talking nonsense in a soft, nonthreatening manner that is quite similar to the voice level heard among so many sitting sadly by themselves today in Day Rooms of mental institutions, off in a corner, wearing paper slippers, slowly eating apple sauce, unaware that nobody is listening.”