During the Democratic debate Tuesday night, candidates were asked the question, “Do black lives matter or do all lives matter?” This mind-numbing question brought out gushing answers of affirmation, “Well of course black lives matter!” from Sanders, Clinton and O’Malley, who all went on to lament that we “need to do more.” Of course that PC Q&A was received with gusto from the media elite who took to Twitter to share their enthusiasm:
Race Issues
By Alexa Moutevelis Coombs | October 13, 2015 | 10:58 PM EDT
ABC's Fresh Off the Boat is a sitcom about a Taiwanese family grateful to be making the most of the opportunity American life has to offer. At least the mom and dad appreciate the U.S., the grandmother hasn't bothered to learn English and is apparently racist. In this scene, Grandma Huang is in an argument with her daughter-in-law Jessica about their relationship and money that Jessica wants to borrow to invest in a house. When Jessica tries to argue that she has been generously taking care of her mother-in-law while their white neighbor Honey doesn't even know where her own mother is, Grandma makes the valid point that it is her obligation, but then lets loose with a racist!
By Matthew Balan | October 12, 2015 | 3:59 PM EDT
On Sunday, ABC's Good Morning America and CBS's Sunday Morning followed the lead of the New York Times in omitting the extremist history of Louis Farrakhan in their coverage of the "Justice or Else" rally marking the 20h anniversary of the Million Man March. The Big Three programs also failed to mention that former pastor to then-Senator Barack Obama, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, spoke at the event and claimed that "Jesus was a Palestinian" during his speech.
By Dylan Gwinn | October 8, 2015 | 4:00 PM EDT
Rumors swirled that ABC's Blackish would take this week off from extremely controversial political issues to instead deal with the common, everyday issue of people dealing with their parents getting older and needing to go see the doctor. Instead, they found a way to turn a simple trip to the doctor into a commentary on mid-20th century medical racism.
By Brad Wilmouth | October 7, 2015 | 5:38 PM EDT
On Tuesday's All In, MSNBC host Chris Hayes devoted a segment to the recent announcement that Alabama will be closing a significant number of the state's DMVs -- some in majority black counties -- as he fretted that Alabama may be making it more difficult for black voters to get the required voter ID cards.
By Brad Wilmouth | October 6, 2015 | 6:28 PM EDT
Appearing as a guest on Monday's The Nightly Show on Comedy Central, during a discussion of recent mass shootings, CNN host Ashleigh Banfield declared that it is "amazing" that, although "those who support gun ownership and gun rights" treat the Second Amendment as "unassailable," they wish to "tear apart the Fourth Amendment" to fight terrorism.
Near the end of the show, after The Nightly Show contributor Andy Yard cracked that he was surprised that no gun laws were passed after the Sandy Hook attack because "little white kids got shot," since "anytime something happens to little white kids, 'Oh, [bleep].'" Banfield moments later took aim at those who oppose more gun laws:
By Tom Blumer | October 5, 2015 | 4:17 PM EDT
Poor Gary Legum at Salon.com. How dare supporters of the right to keep and bear arms as clearly defined in the Constitution's Second Amendment push back against the gun control movement's cynical exploitation of Thursday's Roseburg, Oregon massacre?
Legum is outraged that "The right tells us (again) to ignore the elephant in the room." He must mean the fact that the area in question at Umpqua Community College was a "posted" gun-free zone with only unarmed security guards, right? Of course not. Legum is upset over Americans' "irrational attachment ... to weaponry" — so upset that he descended into profanity and name-calling that would likely end his career forever if he were a right-wing commentator.
By Karen Townsend | September 24, 2015 | 4:25 AM EDT
I confess, I am a new viewer of Empire. It was all the buzz last year, I know, but a gal only has so much time for guilty pleasures. I watched this season opener with optimism, given the good things I’ve heard from girlfriends. I was not disappointed by the spectacle. The sophomore drama is clearly feeling its oats after the smashing success of its first season.
By Tom Blumer | September 10, 2015 | 1:16 AM EDT
The folks at the New York Times must believe not only that their reporters are entitled to inject their opinions into hard-news stories, but that they can also inject their own "facts." Oh, and they can change those facts at will over time to fit the circumstances.
Sheryl Gay Stolberg's Wednesday story about the city's $6.4 million settlement with the family of Freddie Gray appearing in Thursday's print edition is a perfect case in point. Stolberg recast events following Gray's death to claim that there was only one night of rioting, when there were clearly two — even though contemporaneous coverage at the Times itself identified two separate nights of riots.
By Tom Johnson | September 9, 2015 | 9:56 PM EDT
Donald Trump has been likened to (among others) Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon, George Wallace, Morton Downey Jr., and Nickelback, the band. “Nickelback” is also a football term, which brings us to yet another Trump comparison: Dave Zirin believes that the Washington Redskins franchise “is becoming the sports equivalent of the Donald Trump presidential run, a dead-ender operation with nothing to offer but a howl of anger at a slowly evolving world.”
As you probably surmised, Zirin thinks Redskins owner Dan Snyder should dump the team’s “Jim Crow era moniker,” but acknowledged in a Wednesday post that “Snyder clings even more tightly to the name, molding a new constituency of newfound ‘fans’ who want the team to be a symbol of the fight against ‘political correctness’…Now this billion-dollar brand stands disgracefully alongside Donald Trump, Sarah Palin, and everyone attempting to turn a carnival barker’s buck on white anxiety.”
By Matt Philbin | September 8, 2015 | 11:01 AM EDT
Example #547,282 why a modern liberal arts BA has all the inherent honor and usefulness of a fake phone number scrawled on a cocktail napkin: Michael Todd Landis writing on George Mason University’s History News Network proscribing language we are allowed to use when talking about the Civil War.
Landis, Assistant Professor of History at Tarleton State University, doesn’t really have much to say, and certainly nothing new. Mostly, his brief post reads like the work of an average faculty lounge lizard making sure his left-wing credentials are in order for the new school year.
Kos: GOP ‘Crazies’ Like Trump Because He Reflects Their ‘Bigotries’ and ‘Tell[s] the Weenies to F**k Off’
By Tom Johnson | September 6, 2015 | 2:40 PM EDT Does Donald Trump’s popularity among Republicans indicate that a big part of the GOP base is more authoritarian than it is conservative? Yes, suggested Daily Kos founder and publisher Markos Moulitsas in a Friday post.
“The crazies don't really care about any conservative platform, they just want someone to reflect their own bigotries and xenophobia, all the while telling the weenies to fuck off,” wrote Kos. “They'd be just as excited if it was Hulk Hogan playing the role.” He remarked that Trump has a flair for “the kind of braggadocio that appeals to the conservative lizard brain” and concluded, “Remember how hot Vladmir Putin made conservatives? Donald Trump is the GOP's homegrown Vladimir Putin.”