Jesse Jackson

Jesse Jackson's Tepid Tweet: Murder of White Australian by Three 'Bored' Teens 'Is Frowned Upon'
By Tom Blumer | August 22, 2013 | 2:09 AM EDT

Corrected from earlier | People who were wondering whether Jesse Jackson would ever respond to the killing of an Australian collegiate baseball player by three "bored" teens in Oklahoma, one of whom allegedly posted racist tweets, got their answer today. Jackson's early Wednesday morning tweet read as follows: "Praying for the family of Chris Lane. This senseless violence is frowned upon and the justice system must prevail."

A BBC report has police saying that "The boy who has talked to us said, 'we were bored and didn't have anything to do, so we decided to kill somebody.'" The related Associated Press report doesn't carry the direct quote, instead impersonally relaying that "Police say the two killed 22-year-old Christopher Lane on Friday to overcome boredom." The AP has not reported Jesse Jackson's passive-voice reaction at its national site, effectively covering for a statement which comes off as "Well, I'd better say something, so let's get it over with." Let's compare Jackson's reaction to what he wrote on July 15 in a Chicago Sun-Times column about the George Zimmerman-Trayvon Martin situation:

MSNBC's Hayes Goes Soft on Jesse Jackson's 'Known Murderer' Label of Zimmerman
By Brad Wilmouth | July 17, 2013 | 7:10 PM EDT

On Tuesday's All In show, MSNBC host Chris Hayes gave the Reverend Jesse Jackson a softball interview in which the civil rights activist accused George Zimmerman of being "a known murderer" and invoked murder victims like Emmett Till and Medgar Evers from the civil rights movement.

Unlike Friday's show, when he corrected a guest who claimed that Zimmerman "murdered Trayvon Martin," Hayes voiced no exception with the Reverend Jackson's assertions. After Jackson brought up other black men who were killed under controversial circumstances in recent decades, Hayes accepted the liberal activist's premise as he followed up:

Jesse Jackson's Odd Complaint: Trayvon Martin Denied Jury of His Peers
By Mark Finkelstein | July 14, 2013 | 8:13 AM EDT

Appearing on MSNBC this morning, Jesse Jackson condemned the Zimmerman verdict as a "tremendous miscarriage of justice."  It is a mark of Jackson's misconception of just what constitutes justice that chief among his complaints was that Trayvon Martin was denied a jury of his peers because there were no African-Americans or men on it.

But—as Jackson is apparently unaware—the Constitution provides that it is the accused, not the possible victim, who is entitled to an impartial jury [in fact the Constitution nowhere speaks of a jury of peers]. View the video after the jump.

“Amos ‘n’ Andy” Makes an Off-Color Comeback at Jesse Jackson’s Headquarters
By Mike Bates | July 7, 2013 | 11:09 PM EDT

“Amos ‘n’ Andy” was so controversial that in 1951 the NAACP demanded it be taken off the air for its derogatory portrayal of blacks.  By 1966, the NAACP won a victory by stopping the show’s reruns from airing.

But at Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow PUSH Saturday morning forum this week, “Amos ‘n’ Andy” was back in fashion.  Chicago talk show personality Cliff Kelley emceed a panel discussion.  Warming up the crowd, Kelley placed his arm on the shoulder of Harvard law professor Charles Ogletree and tried a little humor:  (video here)

Michael Moore's Irrational Reasoning: White Gun Owners Racist, But Understandable They're Not Afraid Of White Neighbors
By Mark Finkelstein | March 22, 2013 | 9:46 PM EDT

Call it Michael Moore's Jesse Jackson moment . . . Jackson once famously said that when he walked down the street and heard footsteps behind him, he was relieved to turn around and find a white person behind him.

This evening, on Ed Schultz's soon-to-be-extinct weeknight MSNBC show, a histrionic Michael Moore accused white gun owners of racism . . . then proceeded to say it was reasonable for them not to be afraid of their white neighbors  . . . and admitted he felt more comfortable walking down the streets of Toronto than Detroit. View the video after the jump.

Rewriting the Bible: The Gospel According to Liberals
By Paul Wilson | March 13, 2013 | 1:45 PM EDT

When liberals and their media allies have an agenda to push, they’ll use any tool at hand. The left often rails against the presence of religion in civic life, mocking conservative Christians as “Taliban” agitating for theocracy. But other times, they find faith to be a handy weapon to bludgeon conservatives. And they’ll go so far as to reinterpret and rewrite the Bible to justify any liberal cause, no matter how outrageous. 

In 2010, MSNBC anchor Melissa Harris-Perry summed up this strategy in her call for “re-imagining the Bible as a tool of progressive social change.” Huffington Post contributor Mike Lux embraced Harris-Perry’s advice, writing that the Bible embodies “all kinds” of “liberal, lefty, progressive values.”

Jesse Jackson at Chavez Funeral: 'He Lifted the Poor' and 'Helped Them Realize Their Dreams'
By Noel Sheppard | March 8, 2013 | 3:27 PM EST

"Hugo fed the hungry. He lifted the poor. He raised their hopes. He helped them realize their dreams."

So said Jesse Jackson at the funeral of Venezuelan despot Hugo Chavez Friday (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Chicago Tribune Obsesses Over Potential GOP Candidate's Criminal Record, But Omitted Jackson Jr.'s Party Affiliation
By Matt Vespa | March 5, 2013 | 6:27 PM EST

The Chicago Tribune has less of a problem with a politician being a crook while in office than an ex-con running decades later for office, just so long as the former is a Democrat and the latter a Republican. 

Take a look at what Bill Ruthhart of the Chicago Tribune did to Paul McKinley, who could be the possible GOP challenger to Democratic Illinois State House Rep. Robin Kelly.  The Tribune focused more on McKinley's decades-old rap sheet than what he would do if elected to former Democratic Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr’s old congressional seat:

On The Ed Show: Jesse Jackson Compares Scott Walker to Racist Governor George Wallace
By Geoffrey Dickens | June 5, 2012 | 3:53 PM EDT

On the eve of the Wisconsin recall election Ed Schultz invited on the Reverend Jesse Jackson to compare Republican Governor Scott Walker to the segregationist George Wallace and call him “a threat to democracy.” Schultz, on Monday’s edition of The Ed Show, prompted Jackson to explain the comparison, to which the founder of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition responded that the former Alabama governor “tried to block the vote and lost and Walker is trying to stop the vote and will lose.”

Jackson joined Schultz as part of a typically slanted line-up of liberal guests. Out of a total of seven panelists only one, Wisconsin State Senator Glenn Grothman, was a Republican. Last night’s disparity was a microcosm of 15 months of Ed Show guest bias. A recent MRC study showed that from February 14, 2011 through May 18, 2012 anti-Scott Walker guests outnumbered pro-Walker guests on The Ed Show by 237 to 1. (video after the jump)