Racism

Despite No Publicly Available Proof, Press Treats Mizzou Feces-Swastika Incident As Fact
By Tom Blumer | November 10, 2015 | 11:48 PM EST

Name the missing word in the following sentence from tonight's Associated Press report on the current situation at the University of Missouri: "On Friday, the now-former chancellor issued an open letter decrying racism after a swastika smeared in feces was found in a campus dormitory." The obviously missing word is "allegedly," as in, "was allegedly found." That word is also missing in sentences found in three separate reports at the New York Times. On October, 24, the Washington Post unskeptically accepted the recounting of the incident in a report shortly after it — ahem, allegedly — occurred.

There's a really big problem here. Sean Davis at The Federalist was unable, after extensive efforts, to locate any evidence that the incident really took place. Additionally, he found that a photograph supposedly representing what was done has been present elsewhere on the Internet for a year.

CNN's Tapper Spotlights Missouri Professor's 'Shocking' Attack on Reporter
By Matthew Balan | November 10, 2015 | 6:12 PM EST

On Tuesday's The Lead, CNN's Jake Tapper zeroed in on University of Missouri Professor Melissa Click's attack on a student journalist, after he tried to cover anti-racism protests on campus. Tapper bluntly stated, "I have to say that I found this video shocking — not just this mob of students trying to intimidate this student journalist — but they had faculty help!" The anchor later asked Professor Tom Warhover, who also teaches at Mizzou, "Do you think she should be stripped of her courtesy opportunities?" Warhover replied, "I think that's probably a reasonable response."

ABC, NBC Yawn at Missouri Media Professor's Attack on Reporter; CBS Covers
By Matthew Balan | November 10, 2015 | 1:46 PM EST

CBS This Morning stood out as the sole Big Three network morning newscast on Tuesday to cover a University of Missouri academic shouting down a reporter, briefly physically attacking him, and then calling people over to "get this reporter out of here...I need some muscle over here." Norah O'Donnell spotlighted Melissa Click, "an assistant professor of mass media," who along with "students, were telling the media...to back off." ABC's Good Morning America and NBC's Today didn't mention Click.

CNN’s Rachel Nichols Compares Missouri Football Team to Jackie Robinson
By Curtis Houck | November 9, 2015 | 9:38 PM EST

Discussing on Monday’s Anderson Cooper 360 the resignation of the president at the University of Missouri, CNN sports anchor Rachel Nichols compared the Missouri football team’s promise that it wouldn’t practice until the school’s president resigned over an alleged string of racial incidents at the school to the late Jackie Robinson taking a stand for integration in the 1950s.

On HBO, Tarantino Cites '70s TV Shows as Evidence Cops More Violent Now
By Brad Wilmouth | November 8, 2015 | 8:06 PM EST

Appearing as a guest on Friday's Real Time with Bill Maher, liberal film maker Quentin Tarantino joined host Maher in griping about police violence, and absurdly cited the happenings of 1970s police TV shows and the tendency of police characters to fight with criminals who attacked them rather than shoot them as evidence police officers are in modern times more likely to shoot criminal suspects than in days past.

WaPo TV Critic: Larry David's SNL 'Racist' Cry at Trump Seemed 'Genuine'
By Mark Finkelstein | November 8, 2015 | 8:44 AM EST

Can anyone honestly claim that Larry David seemed serious when he yelled "you're a racist" at Donald Trump on last night's SNL? Trick question: I said "honestly." Enter Washington Post TV critic Hank Stuever who in his review of Trump's SNL appearance last night [subtly headlined "Trump’s sorry night on ‘SNL’: An overhyped bummer for us all'], actually claimed that that David's "racist" cry seemed "genuine enough." But if ever an actor went out of his way to signal that he was simply spoofing, it was David.

Have a look at the clip, and you'll see that--far from expressing genuine outrage--David at one point struggled to keep a straight face. And when Trump asked him what he was doing, David sheepishly shrugged his shoulders and threw out his arms in apologetic explanation, saying he "had to do it" because they promised him $5,000. "Genuine enough?" How about "obviously acting?"

CNN's Hill: Police Shootings Shaped By 'Artifacts of White Supremacy'
By Matthew Balan | November 5, 2015 | 7:27 PM EST

Marc Lamont Hill doubled down on his theory about supposed white supremacy shaping police encounters with black people. During a segment on Wednesday's CNN Tonight, Hill disputed the Supreme Court's decades-old "objectively reasonable" standard on the use of police force, and emphasized that "everyday citizens have biases....oftentimes, we are shaped by white supremacy. We are shaped by fear of black bodies. So, just because a jury of people have (sic) the same irrational white supremacist fear of black people doesn't mean that it's okay to shoot them."

Quentin 'Murdering Cops' Tarantino Whines About His First Amendment Rights
By Mark Finkelstein | November 4, 2015 | 9:27 PM EST

Would somebody please explain the First Amendment to Quentin Tarantino? The film director apparently thinks that freedom of speech is a one-way street: he gets to call cops "murderers," but they don't get to defend themselves.

Appearing on MSNBC show this evening, asked by Chris Hayes if he was surprised by the "vitriol" of police reaction to his speech at a recent rally in New York at which he called police "murderers," Quentin whined: "I was under the impression I was an American and that I had First amendment rights." Poor baby. Yeah, you do. So do the cops. 

CNN's Marc Lamont Hill: Police Have 'White Supremacist Anxiety About Black Bodies'
By Brad Wilmouth | November 4, 2015 | 8:51 PM EST

Appearing as a guest on Tuesday's CNN Tonight, liberal CNN political commentator Marc Lamont Hill declared that police officers have a "white supremacist anxiety about black bodies that makes everybody seem like a threat" as he and CNN law enforcement analyst Harry Houck had their latest debate about police interaction with black criminal suspects.

Sounds Like Carville Just Called Ben Carson 'Chauncey Gardiner'
By Mark Finkelstein | November 4, 2015 | 6:41 PM EST

Can you imagine the liberal outrage if a Republican called a prominent African-American Dem candidate "Chauncey Gardiner," the simple soul from the Peter Sellers film Being There? The cries of racism might well cost such a hapless Republican his job. 

But don't expect James Carville to pay any price. On today's With All Due Respect, Carville said that a frustrated Bush "can't believe that Chauncey Gardiner [laughs] and Trump and all these people are running ahead of him." Given that Carson and Trump are the two front-runners, and that Carson, while brilliant, is soft-spoken, there would seem little doubt that Carville meant his Chauncey crack for Carson.

Salon Flops with Claim Colbert Offered 'Bombshell Endorsement' of #BlackLivesMatter
By Michael McKinney | November 3, 2015 | 4:34 PM EST

Tuesday at Salon.com, Sarah Burris claimed that Stephen Colbert gave a "bombshell endorsement" to Black Lives Matter, when he talked about the “excessive force by police departments across the country.” In reality, Colbert gave a moderate response to the recent controversy. Salon evoked imagery and a message that Colbert never addressed in the segment. Colbert offered only comedic pandering on the topic, rather than what Salon badly abbreviated to an “endorsement.”

Wash Post Analysis: Police Justified in Fatal Shootings At Least 95 Pct. of the Time
By Tom Blumer | November 2, 2015 | 10:49 PM EST

On June 30, the Washington Post announced that it would be "compiling a database of every fatal shooting in the United States by a police officer in the line of duty in 2015." The Post has been "tracking more than a dozen details about each killing — including the race of the deceased, the circumstances of the shooting, and whether the person was armed."

The paper's work thus far has been a revealing exercise which should be getting far more attention than it is. I believe would be getting the needed attention if the revelations were different. You see, the analysis of fatal shootings thus far shows that, in layman's terms, the overwhelming majority of them were wholly justified (HT to an Investor's Business Daily editorial).