NPR is being hammered this week for its reporting on right-wing extremists attacking peaceful protesters. The news organization previously showed images of a female motorist who struck a protester on Wednesday as an example of “Right-wing extremists are turning cars into weapons.” Despite the video released quickly by the police (and the fact that police found she was fleeing a protester with a gun and did not charge her), the woman was described as part of a pattern of protesters being innocently mowed down. These cases often raise difficult legal questions in torts on issues of defamation and false light (combining two of the favorite subjects of this blog: media and torts).
Despite my great respect for NPR as a news organization, I have recently criticized NPR for the accuracy of reporting. To its credit, NPR admitted the error in this case. That is more than some other media outfits. For example, the Washington Post has never corrected a false reporting of the actual holding of a court in a column by Jennifer Rubin. Of course, Trump cannot sue over the erroneously description of a court ruling, even one that is expressly contradicted by the opinion itself.
According to local media accounts, the woman was surrounded by protesters around 8:30 a.m. and she was blocked by a protester later identified by police as Darius S. Anderson, 21, who stood in front of the car. The police said that protesters “began to reach into her car, scratching her vehicle window … and assaulting her, pulling her hair (pulling out a dreadlock) causing pain to victim.” She said that a gun was pulled out and that she fled, striking a man. The protesters pursued her and,, when she stopped for a red light, Anderson allegedly approached her car, racked a handgun and pointed it at her. Louisville Metro Police detective said he saw Anderson pass the handgun to Brioanna Richards, 19, “who then hid the gun in a vehicle … to conceal evidence of the crime. ” Both Anderson and Richards were arrested at the scene.
NPR however offered a different take. It included a picture of the incident in a tweet stating “Right-wing extremists are turning cars into weapons, with reports of 50 vehicle-ramming incidents since protests erupted nationwide in late May.” The linked story was titled “Vehicle Attacks Rise As Extremists Target Protesters,” and also featured an image of the incident.
After various commentators lashed out at NPR for the error, it removed the image and published a note, which reads, “A previous version of this post and story included a photo of a protester being struck by a car in Louisville, Kentucky. The photo, chosen by editors, does not appear to be an example of the assaults described in the story, and has been replaced.”
An apology would have been nice for the woman but many have asked whether NPR can or should now be sued. That bring us, thankfully, to the area of torts. There is no question that labeling a woman as an example of right-wing extremists mowing down peaceful protesters is defamatory as well as other potential torts. Those torts include false light where an image or association with story creates a false account. The Kentucky Supreme Court adopted the tort of false light invasion of privacy in 1981. See McCall v. Courier-Journal & Louisville Times Co., 623 S.W.2d 882 (Ky. 1981). Such a claim requires (1) that the false light in which she was placed would be highly offensive to a reasonable person; and (2) that the statement placing the plaintiff in a false light was published with knowledge that the statements were false or in reckless disregard for the false light in which the statements placed the plaintiff.
However, like many such cases, a defamation or false light case is not that easy.
First, the woman’s identity is not revealed in the stories. She is generally identified as a the 46-year-old woman. Other news reports identify her as an African American. While her car is shown, it is not clear that she would suffer actual damage to her reputation. She can raise a per quod case where defamation occurs by reference to extrinsic facts. It is not clear if her identity has been widely disseminated.
For libel or per se slander, such injury does not have to be shown through special damages. News broadcasts (and certainly twitter) are treated as libel, which traditionally covered written forms of defamation. However, even slander was considered inherently damaging if it fell into one of a number of “per se” categories. Those traditional categories include allegations of criminal conduct, moral turpitude, and other highly damaging acts.
Second, she would have to sue a media organization. She is also not public figure, so she is not subject to the higher standard set out in New York Times v. Sullivan. Public officials are placed under a higher standard for defamation in the case: requiring a showing of actual malice or knowing disregard of the truth. The public figure standard is the same and was established in Curtis Publishing v. Butts (1967).
However, the Supreme Court applied the higher standard in cases against the media in a variety of tort claims from intentional infliction of emotional distress, disclosure of private fact, and false light. See Hustler Magazine v. Falwell (1988); Florida Star v. B.J.F. (1989); and Time Inc. v. Hill (1967).
Third, NPR issued a correction. Kentucky is one of many states with the retraction statute. Kentucky’s Code (411.051) states:
(1) In any action for damages for the publication of a defamatory statement in a newspaper, magazine, or periodical, the defendant shall be liable for actual damages sustained by plaintiff. The defendant may plead the publication of a correction in mitigation of damages. Punitive damages may be recovered only if the plaintiff shall allege and prove publication with legal malice and that the newspaper, magazine, or periodical failed to make conspicuous and timely publication of a correction after receiving a sufficient demand for correction.(2) A “sufficient demand for correction” is a demand for correction which is in writing; which is signed by the plaintiff or his duly-authorized attorney or agent; which specifies the statement or statements claimed to be false and defamatory, states wherein they are false, and sets forth the facts; and which is delivered to the defendant prior to the commencement of the action.
Thus, she would not be able to receive punitive damages against NPR. If her identity was not disseminated, damages could end up as de minimis.
Thus, in my view, it would seem that the correction in Kentucky should protect NPR from serious damages for the story.
Don’t forget that at 7 a.m. on Saturday, June 6, 2020 NPR broadcast a very disturbing piece, imo, by one of their “journalists” suggesting that we all check our personal libraries at home, and kindly rid them of any books that contain information, stories, etc of white colonial history!
The curious thing was it was not broadcast in German……………..yet.
Don’t forget that Cindy claims this without actually bothering to link to the story so that people can judge for themselves whether her claim is true.
Not sure what was playing at 7a.m. where you live (station schedules vary somewhat by station). Here’s the Weekend Edition for Saturday, June 6, 2020, and I don’t see what you suggest: https://www.npr.org/programs/weekend-edition-saturday/2020/06/06/871403391/weekend-edition-saturday-for-june-6-2020 If you had something else in mind, you should easily be able to find it at npr.org
“Cindy”
Say no more. It’s “Cindy.”
Comitted…..Good God Gertie you are lazy. I gave you the exact time (EST) and date. I have said before that I canmot copy and paste on this Samsung tablet. Perhaps your nanny could provide some assistsnce for you?
Here’s a little summer reading, watching and listening for you, Cundy.
“This List Of Books, Films And Podcasts About Racism Is A Start, Not A Panacea”
June 6, 20208:34 AM ET
ISABELLA ROSARIO
https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2020/06/06/871023438/this-list-of-books-films-and-podcasts-about-racism-is-a-start-not-a-panacea
Try watching the 2020 movie Uncle Tom.
https://salemnow.com/uncle-tom/
“Good God Gertie,” I already told you that station schedules vary with the station. Which you’d also know if you were an NPR listener who’d lived in different cities. Where I live, at 7am on Saturdays, the station plays On The Media, not Weekend Edition.
So here’s the link to the story you’ve now identified: https://www.npr.org/2020/06/06/870910728/your-bookshelf-may-be-part-of-the-problem
What you claimed was “one of their ‘journalists’ suggest[ed] that we all check our personal libraries at home, and kindly rid them of any books that contain information, stories, etc of white colonial history!” But that’s not what he said. At least now we have a link so we know that your description wasn’t accurate.
Commit……what the hell do you think “decolonize your bookshelf” means??? The colonization books should be “De-shelved”…….taken off the shelf. Too subtle, obviously.
I guess that’s as close as you’ll come to admitting that you weren’t telling the truth when you asserted “one of their ‘journalists’ suggest[ed] that we all check our personal libraries at home, and kindly rid them of any books that contain information, stories, etc of white colonial history!” and your claim is a result of what you inferred, not what Vidal himself actually advocated.
Cindy needs to explore the meaning of the word “decolonize” — a word that she clearly doesn’t understand. Gee, what a surprise. /sarc
CtHD to Cindy:
“At least now we have a link so we know that your description wasn’t accurate.”
Yep.
The article is crap. It presumes that we all have a duty to learn what left wing nuts desire that we learn.
it starts with a claim that we should read broadly and neutrally and then it rejects that.
So let me make it clear. It is not racist to not wigg out about what bothers someone else.
I have no obligation to even pay attention to the problems of your life – even if you are right about them.
I have adopted asian children. I am far more sensitive to the race issues that asians face in america – and the worst racism in america comes from blacks.
But my sensitivity to the discrimination against my own kids does not create a duty that everyone else must get as incensed as I am.
I have lots friends that are black, gay, trans, … I am less sensitive to the issues in their lives than those of my kids, and more than those of strangers.
That is called NORMAL.
The entire country need not riot because some black customer at target spit on my daughter.
Bad acts happen. Ofc. Chauvin should face consequences. But burning looting and murder are not justified responses.
I am far more concerned about the killing of David Dorn than George Floyd.
Floyd did not deserve to due because of the many problems in his life.
But Dorn has a hero, not a screw up.
If the black community is deifying excons and drug addicts, at thee expense of retired police captains killed defending a friends store – then black values are screwed up.
And no changes to my reading list are going to change that.
Regardless, I will read who I damn well please.
If you want me to read your work – it is YOUR job to appeal to me.
I do not care whether it is fiction or non-fiction or you are black or white, or a little bit of both.
Less is more, John Say.
John Say – you have not seen Chinese racism until you have attended the Yee Fong Toy dinner in Phoenix, given each year. I have been to 40 of them and the elders have still not learned my name.
Paul, I am not claiming that the chinese are not racist also – though my adopted children are not.
I do not know of your pheonix dinner, but 95% of china is Hahn chinese. My daughter is not. Chinese minorities – that most of us can not even tell are minorities are seriously persecuted in China. we here sometimes about the Uighurs who are purportedly terrorists.
Maybe they are – in the way that the IRA is terrorists, or the Irgun.
My son is Korean, and we attended a christmas dinner put on by Korean americans for Korean adoptees for 20 years.
Relations were warm, and everyone knows everyone. We all helped to make the event come off.
The organization is older than 20 years, but I adopted my Son in 1999, so that was the first year we attended.
There are all kinds of weirdities. When we take our family to asian resturants. Kirean or chinese it does not matter.
We are told by the owners – our daughter is so lucky to have us, and we are so lucky to have our son.
John Say – I can say that my wife (Chinese) and I are always well treated at Chinese places if not too many people are around. They all want to know where she is from (here), etc. But we get better service. 😉
In any circumstance where I encounter minorities and my children are around I am treated much better.
if I encounter a black person in a grocery store they are distant, but if my daughter is with me they smile.
All asian resturants treat us well. But most fawn over our korean son. it does not matter whether the resturant is korean of chinese – or other asian.
but then my chinese daughter loves sushi and kimichi and Thai, but not really chinese food.
My korean son does not like korean food, but loves everything japanese and is headed to Japan for college – if Japan opens up VISA’s to us students in time for fall classes.
ha ha Paul has friends in the tongs. nice guanxi paul
Paul, I know what they call you in Mandarin but I don’t have hardly any Guandong-hua and i think most of those guys are usually all southern China origin
Mr Kurtz – I don’t think any of them speak Mandarin.
It would be nice if CTHD could not only read the words but if he could comprehend what the words are saying and then think critically. So far it appears he can only reproduce headlines or talking points. Not much there.
this blindness is selective.
Left Wing nuts Are perfectly capable of finding dog whistles of racism
where no one else can when they want to.
Commit…..Just found it 7a.m June 6, 2020…… found under ” Book News” Juan Vidal De-colonize your book shelf. “If you are whitr, you might want to examine your books..”…etc
“white”
Commit…….-Actually, you don’t have to worry about this story.
Nobody is going to come take your copy of “Goodnight, Moon”.
…or Cindy’s copies of “Little Black Sambo.”
Anonymous – you do remember that Little Black Sambo was Indian? There are no tigers in Africa.
Paul C…..Jinx! You owe me a coke!
Sambo was Indian.
Cindy is thick as a brick, as is her pal Paulie:
“The complicated racial politics of Little Black Sambo”
https://www.saada.org/tides/article/little-black-sambo
‘ While set in India and about an Indian protagonist, the illustrations matched what African-Americans such as Langston Hughes recognized immediately to be the “pickaninny.” In Racial Innocence: Performing American Childhood from Slavery to Civil Rights (2011), Robin Bernstein writes, “The pickaninny was an imagined, subhuman black juvenile who was typically depicted outdoors, merrily accepting (or even inviting) violence” (34). In response to the suggestion that Bannerman’s book was nothing more than a simple children’s story, Hughes would cut to the quick of American race relations saying that Little Black Sambo was “amusing undoubtedly to the white child, but like an unkind word to one who has known too many hurts to enjoy the additional pain of being laughed at” (Qtd. in Pilgrim). Additionally, the term “Sambo” had already gained currency in America as a black archetype, particularly, a black servant who was “loyal and contented” (Pilgrim). This was by no means limited to the United States.’
Anonymous – this is Merriam-Webster.
pickaninny noun
pick·a·nin·ny | \ ˈpi-kə-ˌni-nē , ˌpi-kə-ˈni- \
variants: or picaninny
plural pickaninnies or picaninnies
Definition of pickaninny
dated, now offensive
—used as a term for a black child
Now I Agatha Christie’s 2nd title for her now titled And Then There Where None. Guess what the first two titles were? The meaning of words change.
Paul,
The original title was Ten Little Indians, if I recall, based on the poem that was a major part of the storyline.
Excellent book.
Prairie Rose – Ten Little Indians is the 2nd title. 😉
Cindy, what are you saying, do i have to toss my edition of Mein Kampf out too? I have quite the collection of “banned books” including a few by some commies, and some that were fine reading, like “Tropic of Cancer.” bny Henry Miller
I don’t plan on parting with any of them.
Mr Kurtz…lol
I wrote them and told them they should’ve been more honest and started by requestiong that we throw out all Jew books first!
Haven’t heard back.
There’s a curious notion floated by some people that Christianity is itself, “inherently antisemitic.” That Paul of Tarsus, aka St Paul, was himself, a “jewish antisemite”
and yet there are others, going back to Celsus, a Roman-Greek who disliked Christianity, who regarded it as merely another troublesome jewish cult. Julian the Apostate, made remarks like that too, if I recall.
If one were to toss out all the books which are filled with any form of antisemitism, then, some people would want to throw away the New Testament, and they might be applauded by those who don’t like Judaism, either.
Then if we threw out any book that glamorized genocide, perhaps would would have to throw out the Old Testament too, which celebrates the victory of the Israelites over Amalek, Jerhico, and other cities in Canaan, that were exterminated.
Would any of that end antisemitism? I doubt it. People would just be more ignorant.
AND PERHAPS MAKING US MORE IGNORANT IS ACTUALLY WHAT IS INTENDED!
Wise people don’t throw out books, and good people don’t smash icons.
You might want to read the article. Best not to take Cindy’s word for what was said.
Better get busy, Cindy.
“This List Of Books, Films And Podcasts About Racism Is A Start, Not A Panacea”
https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2020/06/06/871023438/this-list-of-books-films-and-podcasts-about-racism-is-a-start-not-a-panacea
As of Friday, 15 of the top 20 bestselling books on Amazon were about race or racism. Earlier this week, Code Switch was number one on Apple Podcasts — which, as host Gene Demby said, is “dope,” but unfortunately occurred under “soul-crushing circumstances.” And The Help is trending on Netflix (ahem, a film that drew immediate ire upon release).
We’re in the middle of one of those awfully predictable news cycles — a video of police killing a black person goes viral, protests ensue and broader America suddenly realizes we need to talk about race. Of course, while this week has happened before, it’s also happening on a much larger scale than ever before, with demonstrations in all 50 states.
Your Bookshelf May Be Part Of The Problem
To help people be better allies, lists of antiracist books, films and podcasts are being published in droves. There’s never a bad time to learn, but such a list can become erroneously prescriptive, a balm to centuries-old lacerations that cut deeper than the individual reader. As Lauren Michele Jackson wrote for Vulture, “The word [anti-racism] and its nominal equivalent, “anti-racist,” suggests something of a vanity project, where the goal is no longer to learn more about race, power, and capital, but to spring closer to the enlightened order of the antiracist.”
So, with that in mind, we’ve compiled a list of books, films and podcasts about systemic racism, acknowledging that they are just books, films and podcasts. You’ll find research on how racism permeates everything from the criminal justice system to health care. We hope you spend some time with these resources (and that you listen to Code Switch — here’s a list of episodes to get you started). Information is power — you decide what you do with it.
Books
Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting Together In The Cafeteria? And Other Conversations About Race by Beverly Daniel Tatum
This classic text on the psychology of racism was re-released with new content in 2017, 20 years after its original publication. By providing straight talk on self-segregation and inequality in schools, Tatum shows the importance — and possibility — of cross-racial dialogues starting young.
Race for Profit: How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
A finalist for the 2020 Pulitzer Prize in History, Race for Profit chronicles how the Housing and Urban Development Act of 1968 failed to stop racist, exploitative mortgage lending practices. Since the policy was supposed to be a balm to the 1960s uprisings — much like the ones we’re seeing now — it serves as a reminder to remain vigilant when policymakers promise change.
A Terrible Thing To Waste: Environmental Racism And Its Assault On The American Mind by Harriet A. Washington
From lead poisoning to toxic waste, Americans of color are disproportionately harmed by environmental hazards. This is detrimental to physical health — air pollution is linked with higher COVID-19 death rates, according to Harvard researchers. But Washington also argues that environmental racism is causing cognitive decline in communities of color. A deconstruction of IQ and an indictment of EPA rollbacks, A Terrible Thing To Waste is a stirring read.
From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime: The Making of Mass Incarceration in America by Elizabeth Hinton
The origins of mass incarceration — which disproportionately puts black people behind bars — are often pinned on Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon. But Hinton argues the carceral state was erected “by a consensus of liberals and conservatives who privileged punitive responses to urban problems as a reaction to the civil rights movement.” The 1965 Law Enforcement Assistance Act, part of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society plan, led to today’s police militarization. This account of history poses relevant questions for today’s land of the free.
Automating Inequality: How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police and Punish the Poor by Virginia Eubanks
Algorithms are made by humans, so they are susceptible to human biases. From deciding which neighborhoods get policed to who gets welfare benefits, discrimination has gone digital. By scrutinizing statistical models and telling personal stories, Eubanks shows that machines do not correct racist systems — they only shift blame.
The End of Policing by Alex S. Vitale
In the wake of high-profile cases of police brutality, the same ideas for reform are trotted out — implicit bias training, body cameras, police-community dialogues. But Vitale argues that this fails to get to the root of the problem — policing itself. While calls to abolish the police are often met with skepticism, academics and activists have long-discussed alternatives to addressing homelessness, domestic disputes and substance abuse. A free ebook of The End of Policing is available now. (And you can read Code Switch editor extraordinaire Leah Donnella’s conversation with Vitale here.)
Blackballed: The Black Vote and U.S. Democracy by Darryl Pinckney
As young Americans take to the streets to say black lives matter, they’re often told to vote. While voting is important, it’s also important to remember how black political representation has been chipped away by voter ID laws, gerrymandering and felon disenfranchisement. Blackballed addresses the struggle for voting rights and for racial equality more broadly, drawing on Pinckney’s own experiences and writings of civil rights leaders to create a complicated picture of black political identity.
Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Have Reinvented Racism and Wrecked the Middle Class by Ian Haney López
“Entitlement mentality.” “Quotas.” “Welfare queens.” From Barry Goldwater to Bill Clinton to the Tea Party, politicians have relied on racially coded language to win over white voters and decimate social programs. Dog Whistle Politics makes the case that not only does this strategy endanger people of color, but it also hinders economic mobility for all Americans.
Medical Bondage: Race, Gender, and the Origins of American Gynecology by Deirdre Cooper Owens
The foundational knowledge of American gynecology relied on the exploitation of enslaved black women’s bodies. In Medical Bondage, Cooper Owens centers the stories of black women that have been overshadowed by the “discoveries” of white male doctors who experimented on them. Baseless theories about black inferiority and higher pain tolerance still permeate medical schools today.
Body and Soul: The Black Panther Party and the Fight against Medical Discrimination by Alondra Nelson
The Black Panther Party is most remembered for its militant action, but health care was also a major pillar of its activism. The People’s Free Medical Clinics tested for hypertension and assisted with housing and employment. Its outreach also brought attention to rampant discrimination within mainstream medicine. Nelson writes that the Black Panther Party understood health as a human right, echoing today’s fight for universal health care. You can read Body and Soul online for free.
Films
13th
The U.S. imprisons more people than any other country in the world, and a third of U.S. prisoners are black. In this infuriating documentary, director Ava DuVernay argues that mass incarceration, Jim Crow and slavery are “the three major racialized systems of control adopted in the United States to date.”
I Am Not Your Negro
Narrated by the words of James Baldwin with the voice of Samuel L. Jackson, I Am Not Your Negro connects the Civil Rights Movement to Black Lives Matter. Although Baldwin died nearly 30 years before the film’s release, his observations about racial conflict are as incisive today as they were when he made them.
Whose Streets?
The 2014 killing of 18-year-old Michael Brown by police in Ferguson, Mo. was one of the deaths that sparked the Black Lives Matter movement. Frustrated by media coverage of unrest in Ferguson, co-directors Sabaah Folayan and Damon Davis documented how locals felt about police in riot gear filling their neighborhoods with tear gas. As one resident says, “They don’t tell you the fact that the police showed up to a peaceful candlelight vigil…and boxed them in, and forced them onto a QuikTrip lot.”
LA 92
LA 92 is about the Los Angeles riots that occurred in response to the police beating of Rodney King. The film is entirely comprised of archival footage — no talking heads needed. It’s chilling to watch the unrest of nearly 30 years ago, as young people still take to the streets and shout, “No justice, no peace.”
Teach Us All
Over 60 years after Brown v. Board of Education, American schools are still segregated. Teach Us All explains why that is — school choice, residential segregation, biased admissions processes — and talks to advocates working for change. Interspersing interviews from two Little Rock Nine members, the documentary asks how far we’ve really come.
Black America Since MLK: And Still I Rise
In this two-part series, Henry Louis Gates, Jr. chronicles the last 50 years of black history through a personal lens. Released days after the 2016 election, some themes of the documentary took on a deeper meaning amid Donald Trump’s win. “Think of the civil rights movement to the present as a second Reconstruction — a 50-year Reconstruction — that ended last night,” Gates said in an interview with Salon.
Podcasts
Floodlines from The Atlantic
An audio documentary about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Floodlines is told from the perspective of four New Orleanians still living with the consequences of governmental neglect. As COVID-19 disproportionately infects and kills Americans of color, the story feels especially relevant. “As a person of color, you always have it in the back of your mind that the government really doesn’t care about you,” said self-described Katrina overcomer Alice Craft-Kerney.
1619 from The New York Times
“In August of 1619, a ship carrying more than 20 enslaved Africans arrived in the English colony of Virginia. America was not yet America, but this was the moment it began.” Hosted by recent Pulitzer Prize winner Nikole Hannah-Jones, the 1619 audio series chronicles how black people have been central to building American democracy, music, wealth and more.
Intersectionality Matters! from The African American Policy Forum
Hosted by Kimberlé Crenshaw, a leading critical race theorist who coined the term “intersectionality,” this podcast brings the academic term to life. Each episode brings together lively political organizers, journalists and writers. This recent episode on COVID-19 in prisons and other areas of confinement is a must-listen.
Throughline from NPR
Every week at Throughline, our pals Rund Abdelfatah and Ramtin Arablouei “go back in time to understand the present.” To understand the history of systemic racism in America, we recommend “American Police,” “Mass Incarceration” and “Milliken v. Bradley.”
Cindy is — no surprise — distorting and spinning — to suit her purposes. If one wants accuracy, they’re not going to get it from Cindy.
This is some of what the author said:
https://www.npr.org/2020/06/06/870910728/your-bookshelf-may-be-part-of-the-problem
“You may have seen the phrase “decolonize your bookshelf” floating around. In essence, it is about actively resisting and casting aside the colonialist ideas of narrative, storytelling, and literature that have pervaded the American psyche for so long.
“If you are white, take a moment to examine your bookshelf. What do you see? What books and authors have you allowed to influence your worldview, and how you process the issues of racism and prejudice toward the disenfranchised? Have you considered that, if you identify as white and read only the work of white authors, you are in some ways listening to an extension of your own voice on repeat? While the details and depth of experience may differ, white voices have dominated what has been considered canon for eons. That means non-white readers have had to process stories and historical events through a white author’s lens. The problem goes deeper than that, anyway, considering that even now 76% of publishing professionals — the people you might call the gatekeepers — are white.
“Reading broadly and with intention is how we counter dehumanization and demand visibility, effectively bridging the gap between what we read and how we might live in a more just and equitable society.”
Anonymous…..Yes, the author was so gentle, passive and peaceful. Just like the protests.
Aonymous – this is a terrible analysis. You should look for a good story regardless of who the author is.
It’s good that someone is shining a light on Cindy’s distortions.
““decolonize your bookshelf” floating around. In essence, it is about actively resisting and casting aside”
I wonder what the author means by decolonize your bookshelf.
““If you are white, take a moment to examine your bookshelf. What do you see? ”
Did the author say ‘if you are black or brown, take a moment to examine your bookshelf?’ Did he say anything about dad teaching kids how to read and stay in school? My entire family has been educated and the dads have been essential in making sure the family structure promoted education and reading.
Did the author advise, as part of the reading list, the Bible? Is Socrates to be excluded? Not a nice guy but should he be excluded becuase he was white.
Sounds like anonymous has a deficient education.
I guess I am going to have to burn my copy of Huck Finn.
What about Twains “the War Prayer” ?
Pilgrims Progress ?
Grant’s memoirs ?
I am told Churchill is somehow cancelled now.
I have many of his books.
How about Exodus ?
Aren’t the jews now racist ?
Gona be a pretty big fire.
And don’t forget Jay Z’s lyrics ……..He’s Barack’s fave, remember……ah…the hypocrisy!
John Say, I can give you many different reasons not to burn your books from all sides of the aisle.
1) You can send them to me.
2) If you burn them the book burners will say you are trying to destroy our environment.
3) Churchill was the greatest man of the 20th century. Some people live in a very narrow world and can’t associate dead people with place and time.
The Germans burned books. Look who is advocating a similar stance. The fascist left.
Our hero’s all have clay feet.
MLK was a philanderer.
Jefferson fathered children with women he owned.
I do not know what Churchill’s crime is – I am guessing he is considered a colonialist or something.
Regardless as you say he was the greatest leader of the 20th century. Possibly one of the greatest Briton’s ever.
And part american.
His accomplishments are amazing. He inspired the English to stand alone against Hitler for years.
He spent Britian’s future to buy time waiting for america to come arround and join the war.
He took the darkest moments and still gave britians hope.
This was as he said britians finest hour, and he not only lead britian through it, but there is no doubt that without him it would not have happened.
But he made innumerable mistakes. Sometimes his actions saved briton from defeat others some stupid action of his nearly cost britian the war.
Not only does britian owe him – the whole world does.
I have no evidence that he was some flaming racist.
But even if he was – it does not matter. Whatever his flaws, he was a historical giant necessary for that moment.
And as politically catty as he was – he still makes FDR look like an unprincipled amateur.
Churchill was dealt a poor hand and played it better than was possible and still stood up for principles.
John, my understanding of Churchill was that he was a colonialist and the deals with FDR helped end that era for GB. I think he also believed in the elites but he believed it was his job as a leader to protect the other class. That was not unusual for the times. There were many positive things created by what we might perceive as negatives.
No human being is pure. Leftists that are most impure use those imperfections to their advantage and fools follow them.
Churchill had two flaws which were unexceprtional in his day and age – he wrote an essay on how dangerous it is to use Muslims as troops (Major Hasan at Fort Hood and that Saudi officer at Pensacola racked up impressive body counts in terrorist mass killings, so Churchill is sort of a prophet there).
He also, as a British officer in Iraq may have been the first man to use poison gas extensively in pacifying restive locals. He also came very close to using poison gas and biological warfare against Germany in WW2.
The issue, of course, is do we burn the books of an incredible statesman for these events in his live, or do we take note of them and adjust our view of Churchill as a great man with flaws?
None of those are going to remove Churchill from the pinnacle of British leaders.
There is lots to criticise about Churchill. He has a long list of mistakes. But they are dwarfed by what he did.
Kipling’s “American Notes” and “As Easy as A. B. C.” would be kindling for the fire were my copies not digital. He doesn’t mean to be racist – in those books he’s simply a man of his era, and it was a pretty racist time. So we’re to create a Ministry of Truth to censor everything to suit those in power? Just asking.
facebook is selectively pulling down republican posts en masse.
BREAK THE SOCIAL MEDIA MONOPOLISTS UP WITH ANTITRUST LAW ASAP
https://www.theepochtimes.com/project-veritas-facebook-moderators-say-they-delete-everything-conservative-pro-trump_3398080.html
“facebook is selectively pulling down republican posts en masse.”
Don’t believe everything you read.
If you don’t know how to check whether it’s true or false, let me know, and I’ll help you get better at checking.
“President Donald Trump has angrily complained this week about social media companies, repeatedly accusing them of censoring conservative voices and going as far as to sign an executive order Thursday seeking to limit their power. But data from Facebook, the world’s largest social media company, pours cold water on the assertion that conservative voices are being silenced. In fact, according to CrowdTangle [https://www.crowdtangle.com/], a data-analytics firm owned by Facebook, content from conservative news organizations dominates Facebook and often outperforms content from straightforward news organizations. …
“Over the last month, the top performing news organization in the US was Fox News, a conservative network which largely echoes the Trump White House’s messaging. Fox News captured 13% of all interactions among US news organizations with more than 29 million likes, comments, and shares, according to CrowdTangle. The second top-performing page belonged to Breitbart, a right-wing website that is largely supportive of the President and has close ties to the White House. Its Facebook page accounted for 9% of the total US media interactions over the last month with more than 20 million likes, comments, and shares. …”
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2020/05/28/media/trump-social-media-conservative-censorship/index.html
pffft. this has been known for years. it is now verified.
DESTROY FACEBOOK –THEY ARE YOUR OPPRESSOR
pffft
That you’ve believed something for years doesn’t make it knowledge. Knowledge is justified true belief, and since your belief isn’t true, it cannot be knowledge.
I’ve never had a Facebook account and have no intention of creating one.
i had one a while and pulled the plug. a long time ago.
the process of editing user comments which has always been the norm in newspapers, was initially not a factor in early social media
then, artificial intelligence algos were developed that made it possible to sift the millions of user comments coming daily.,
then the giants like FB undertook culling those who did not agree with them, quietly.
now they brag about it. the phenomenon is well known and openly admitted. in a way okeefe’s undercover videos only verify what facebook was already boasting of in its press releases, if you can read between the lines
you are free to ignore reality but one day it may be YOUR comments that get deleted too
here at Turley’s space i am in one of the very few venues that draws any thinking eyeballs which has a genuine “Free speech” moderation policy. I applaud Turley and not one single “social media company” except perhaps GAB a very small one, although I do not use it
AG Sulzberger’s wife works for NPR. The news business is incestuous.
The president of NPR from shortly after it’s founding to 1983 was George McGovern’s campaign manager. It’s always been a partisan sandbox, It just used to be subtler about it. Shut it down.
As for the media in general, strip them of the little gift the Warren court gave them for all the good coverage and restore proper defamation law in this country. Liquidating a few of these odious enterprises in order to pay judgments to the people they injure should induce the rest to behave better. Also, remove any immunity that protects them from having to reveal source names in depositions. Make them pay in discovery.
You don’t define what “proper defamation law” would be. I wonder how your unspecified changes would affect things like the defamation suits against Trump (e.g., from Summer Zervos and E. Jean Carroll). Do you also want him to “pay judgments to the people [he] injure[s]”?
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/10/soros-pumps-28-million-democratic-groups-2020-179367
Proper defamation law is at the bottom of the list. Right now we need to understand who is setting the COLOR REVOLUTION in motion for America just as he did many nations before, past decades. Geo Soros, fat pig and destroyer of nations. and someone with sufficient resources needs to crush the head of the snake
Perhaps it is now just a matter of the majority of us becoming aware of the false nature of so much of the left leaning news. The game is up and we know the difference between truth and propaganda and the left media is finding out that their credibility is gone.
It ain’t just the left-leaning media. Propaganda is a tool that can wielded by the right or left.
yes prarie and there is no right, or, they are too incompetent to do it. so it’s all coming from billionaires who pull the strings on the socalled “left”
and with tremendous resources and effects
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/10/soros-pumps-28-million-democratic-groups-2020-179367
Mr. Kurtz,
“there is no right, or, they are too incompetent to do it.”
I’d hazard it is neither left nor right but rather the statists who wish to control power and steer the narrative to their desired ends.
The ‘right’ can most assuredly do it. WMDs, NCLB, a nice oldie–Guatamalan coup by Eisenhower.
When NPR and PBS were chartered in the 70s, they were chartered as “educational,” not “news” outlets. I do listen to PBS in the car sometimes but there’s no longer anything “educational” about them. They are a leftwing opinion network, period. They should not be receiving taxpayers’ funds. If corporations and foundations want to fund them, fine but the “public” needs to be dropped. By the way, corporations and foundations pay big bucks to the Marxist “Black Lives Matter” organization.
If the woman who owns the car is black, they should pay 10x the anticipated reparations she would be expected to get under the current BLM plan. And, they have to have a special fund raising across the country to do it. 10X the amount per NPR station. And each must fund raise for the cause stating what the cause is.
NPR has been called “National Peoples Radio” for decades for a reason
Matt Taibbi’s article is a good one
excerpt follows
The American Press Is Destroying Itself
https://taibbi.substack.com/p/the-news-media-is-destroying-itself
Each passing day sees more scenes that recall something closer to cult religion than politics. White protesters in Floyd’s Houston hometown kneeling and praying to black residents for “forgiveness… for years and years of racism” are one thing, but what are we to make of white police in Cary, North Carolina, kneeling and washing the feet of Black pastors? What about Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer kneeling while dressed in “African kente cloth scarves”?
There is symbolism here that goes beyond frustration with police or even with racism: these are orgiastic, quasi-religious, and most of all, deeply weird scenes, and the press is too paralyzed to wonder at it. In a business where the first job requirement was once the willingness to ask tough questions, we’ve become afraid to ask obvious ones.
On CNN, Minneapolis City Council President Lisa Bender was asked a hypothetical question about a future without police: “What if in the middle of the night, my home is broken into? Who do I call?” When Bender, who is white, answered, “I know that comes from a place of privilege,” questions popped to mind. Does privilege mean one should let someone break into one’s home, or that one shouldn’t ask that hypothetical question? (I was genuinely confused). In any other situation, a media person pounces on a provocative response to dig out its meaning, but an increasingly long list of words and topics are deemed too dangerous to discuss.
The media in the last four years has devolved into a succession of moral manias. We are told the Most Important Thing Ever is happening for days or weeks at a time, until subjects are abruptly dropped and forgotten, but the tone of warlike emergency remains: from James Comey’s firing, to the deification of Robert Mueller, to the Brett Kavanaugh nomination, to the democracy-imperiling threat to intelligence “whistleblowers,” all those interminable months of Ukrainegate hearings (while Covid-19 advanced), to fury at the death wish of lockdown violators, to the sudden reversal on that same issue, etc.
It’s been learned in these episodes we may freely misreport reality, so long as the political goal is righteous. It was okay to publish the now-discredited Steele dossier, because Trump is scum. MSNBC could put Michael Avenatti on live TV to air a gang rape allegation without vetting, because who cared about Brett Kavanaugh – except press airing of that wild story ended up being a crucial factor in convincing key swing voter Maine Senator Susan Collins the anti-Kavanaugh campaign was a political hit job (the allegation illustrated, “why the presumption of innocence is so important,” she said). Reporters who were anxious to prevent Kavanaugh’s appointment, in other words, ended up helping it happen through overzealousness.
There were no press calls for self-audits after those episodes, just as there won’t be a few weeks from now if Covid-19 cases spike, or a few months from now if Donald Trump wins re-election successfully painting the Democrats as supporters of violent protest who want to abolish police. No: press activism is limited to denouncing and shaming colleagues for insufficient fealty to the cheap knockoff of bullying campus Marxism that passes for leftist thought these days.
Anonymous– Excellent. Thanks for posting that article.
That was Estovir who had a bit of a problem posting under his own alias. Why would anyone ban such comments? They wouldn’t so I think Estovir’s problems were due to WordPress rather than any human deletion.
“Reporters” today are nothing more than activists.
Anonymous……Matt Taibi’s mention of Pelosi and Schumer taking a knee…That image is still hilarious to me!
It looked like an ill-advised geriatric revival of “A Chorus Line” (prior to hip replacements)
It’s not “cultural appropriation” if rich white liberals wear kente.
Let’s highlight this — also by Matt Taibbi:
“Our president, Donald Trump, is a clown who makes a great reality-show villain but is uniquely toolless as the leader of a superpower nation. Watching him try to think through two society-imperiling crises is like waiting for a gerbil to solve Fermat’s theorem. Calls to “dominate” marchers and ad-libbed speculations about Floyd’s “great day” looking down from heaven at Trump’s crisis management and new unemployment numbers (“only” 21 million out of work!) were pure gasoline at a tinderbox moment. The man seems determined to talk us into civil war.”
Word.
So Hellvis – what should be done here ?
Should Trump try to soothe BLM protestors ?
Should he call in the troops ?
You claim that Biden or Obama could have done better.
We had this after Micheal Brown during Obama – went very similar.
Because it is primarly a state problem.
The same is true of C19.
I would love to rant that Democrtic governors have F’d up C19 – and they have.
But I can only go so far – because the actual real world facts make it plain Government has no effective tools to deal with C19.
And should step out. No state, no federal, No local, just let people work it out.
Nature is sometimes cruel and some of us are going to die.
Or if you must do something – protect the most vulnerable.
If you are over 55 your risk of dying from this is about 3 times your risk of dying from the flue.
But if you are under 30 your risk of dying from this is about 1/8 that of the flu.
C19 kills unhealthy people and older people.
Researchers in Europe have used the IMIE model with adjustments based on what we have learned and found that they con model accurately C19 accross the world on a few factors.
The age and health of the population.
The latitude,
Diet,
There are no other independent variables that effect anything but timing.
There is no government response that has a statistically significant impact.
So which of the myriads of things other govenrments have done that have had no impact, do you want Trump to do that he has not ?
C-19 is not a state problem, it is an international problem and the President alone has powers not available to anyone else in our nation. He not only has refused to use them, he has failed to provide leadership on best practices in any form whatever and actively sabotages efforts by others in his administration and at the state level. He deserves the harsh judgement he is receiving.
“C-19 is not a state problem, it is an international problem”
You don’t have the slightest idea of how federalism works or why it exists. You don’t have the slightest idea of the President’s Constitutional limitations. Instead you think in terms of dictatorship. One day take the time to read the Constitution along with a bit of history so you don’t sound like such an a$$.
“C-19 is not a state problem, it is an international problem and the President alone has powers not available to anyone else in our nation. He not only has refused to use them, he has failed to provide leadership on best practices in any form whatever and actively sabotages efforts by others in his administration and at the state level. He deserves the harsh judgement he is receiving.”
Absolutely false.
In the US there is no federal police power NONE.
Turley and many many other left lawyers have chastized Trump correctly for saying he had powers regarding C19 that he does not.
You say Trump should show best practices – yet the DATA shows, there is no “best practices” – nothing has worked.
Aside from a different mortality curve and a higher R0 this is pretty much just like the Flu. The only way we have ever stopped a respiratory virus is with a vaccine. All the rest of what we have done is feel good theater and most of it has been a mistake.
To be clear – I am not defending Trump – I am attacking what is essentially a leftist ideological position – that government can fix it whenever something bad happens.
The lesson to this is not Trump screwed up. Trump was ineffective, all world leaders were ineffective.
T$here was no means for govenrment to be effective.
The lesson is that there are myriads of things far outside the power of govenrment – and the wishes of all of us – left or right do not change that.
So many questionable statements you’ve made here, John. It will take awhile to add, subtract and debunk where appropriate. I’ll begin a couple at a time…
Yes, Trump should try to soothe BLM protesters. And he should do it by listening to their concerns in a public way. He should convene a task force to solidify whatever formal concerns they’d have, knowing that this is a problem hundreds of years in the making, so won’t be solved overnight, but that could practically and symbollically take a step in the right direction. Seems a pretty obvious way to do this would be handholding the States as they figure out how to remove objectionable statues. Another way would be to lean on Mitch McConnell to move the voter security bill he brushed off awhile back. Another would be to be open to mail in voting in the time of a pandemic…granted each state would have to figure this out on a state by state basis, but Trump should just try to show a shred of leadership in this respect by encouraging states to move in that direction.
Will he? Of course not. He knows his only chance to win a second term is to do whatever he can to lower voter turnout.
Better yet re BLM …take whatever steps necessary to coordinate training for police away from where its gotten, confrontational and military. The knee on the neck move? Total military. Federal mandate to knock it off. I’m kind of surprised choke holds are getting so much attention in comparison.
Lead a way toward revamping the 13th amendment re voting rights for felons who have done their time and moved away from a life of incarceration. No brainer. By the way, the 13th, great doc on Netflix…very worth watching.
I’ll tackle another point later…
“Yes, Trump should try to soothe BLM protesters.”
Start at 30 seconds so you can better hear what they are saying. You sound like you just arrived from the Planet Mars and haven’t yet learned anything about BLM.
Take home message? There’s an awful lot wrong with policing around the issue of race in which an awful lot has to be done to remedy the situation. Now go home to your cave little boy.
Take home message Hellvis, you don’t know what you are talking about so you wing it and sound like a fool. Perhaps in real life you are one. That is believeable. That you do not know what BLM is all about demonstrates an extraordinary ignorance.
As far as policing and race: I won’t deny that in some areas racism exists in police departments. However, the statistics show that despite the racism that might exist the actions of the police do not seem racist when one looks at fatal shootings etc. Black officers are more likely to shoot black criminals than white officers. The number of black unarmed deaths shot by police is so small that statistically when dealing with such deaths they are insignificant compared to black on black homicides.
You don’t give a damn about racism for if you did your focus would be on the inner cities where thousands of blacks are murdered every year. Those cities tradtionally have been run for decades by Democratic mayors and very predominantly by Democrat governors. Your ideas and how you act has done more to kill black kids than every police department in America. You are downright ignoarant.
There is no systemic racism.
My guess is that we actually agree on many necessary police reforms.
But not one has anything to do with race.
I would further note that though I do want to reform policing.
and there are lots of changes I support,
I am still looking to improve a system that is inherently pretty good.
Crime has dropped precipitously since the 80’s.
Every single problem that you think exists and has a racial component has improved radically.
But if push came to shove and it was necescary to turn a blind eye to a small amount of police racism, to reduce the rate of violent crime in this country by 300% (which is what has happened).
I will slow down my enthusiasm for reform.
Even blacks need an effective police force more than they need BLM
“So many questionable statements you’ve made here, John. It will take awhile to add, subtract and debunk where appropriate. I’ll begin a couple at a time…”
Of course my QUESTIONS to you are “questionable” – that is kind of a tautology.
“Yes, Trump should try to soothe BLM protesters. And he should do it by listening to their concerns in a public way. He should convene a task force to solidify whatever formal concerns they’d have, knowing that this is a problem hundreds of years in the making, so won’t be solved overnight, but that could practically and symbollically take a step in the right direction. Seems a pretty obvious way to do this would be handholding the States as they figure out how to remove objectionable statues. Another way would be to lean on Mitch McConnell to move the voter security bill he brushed off awhile back. Another would be to be open to mail in voting in the time of a pandemic…granted each state would have to figure this out on a state by state basis, but Trump should just try to show a shred of leadership in this respect by encouraging states to move in that direction.”
So that is what Washington should have done with the Whiskey rebellion and what Lincoln should have done with the confederates ?
That is what FDR should have done with the Japanese and the Germans ?
Is that what Obama did with Furgesson ?
Is that what he did with ISIL ?
Regardless Trump has actually issued twice as many concilliatory statements as Biden – the press does not report them.
Trump has issued an EO arleady to incentivize police reform.
And now democrats in congress have blocked a bill to enact any reform – because they want a political weapon they do not want police reform. They want riots and murders and anarchy. They beleive that will get them elected.
“Will he? Of course not.”
He has already done much of what you said he ought to.
“He knows his only chance to win a second term is to do whatever he can to lower voter turnout.”
The lefts idea of “voter security” has another name “voter fraud”.
You are not going to get any voting changes through congress that require republican support without enforceable verification that the person casting a vote is who they say they are and eligable to vote.
Aggree to that, and to measures to assure a rigid chain of custody of ballots from the time the voter is verified until the election is finalized and anything else you want can be discussed.
“Better yet re BLM …take whatever steps necessary to coordinate training for police away from where its gotten, confrontational and military. The knee on the neck move? Total military. Federal mandate to knock it off. I’m kind of surprised choke holds are getting so much attention in comparison.”
Trump’s EO already covers that.
At the same time there are only a few things that are inside the federal domain.
Policing is constitutionally NOT a federal power. Frankly the courts should have barred the federal government from providing money to state and local police. But they have not.
Today, the federal governmnt provides a relatively small amount of money to state and local police in return for data.
They also provide state and local governments with surplus military weapons.
That is pretty much it. Policing is a state/local matter – not constitutionally federal.
Qualified immunity should be ended – and not just for police, but for prosecutors and judges.
But only congress can do that – not Trump. Trump is opposed – and he is wrong on that.
The militarization of the police is driven by the federal govenrment – and that should be ended.
Trump can – and has in his EO conditioned that aide on making improvements in policing.
But he can not prevent the military aide to state and local police – only congress can do that.
Neither Trump, nor congress can bar chokeholds or pretty much anything else in local policing.
the most that can be done is increntivize or disincentivize state and local police by cutting off the small amount of federal funds.
You operate on the delusion that the president and federal govenrment are omnipotent.
I know sometimes Trump talks as if he is, and Obama certainly acted as if he was.
But the federal govenrment is not.
Trump has little actual power regarding C19 and even less regarding policing.
“Lead a way toward revamping the 13th amendment re voting rights for felons who have done their time”
What has that got to do with this ?
It is an interesting issue. But it is independent and unrelated. The vast majroity of states already return voting rights to convicted fellons, but not until after they have completed every aspect of their sentence – that includes parole and fines and costs.
I have no problems with a discussion about changing that – but again it is a state matter.
Further the answer is not clear.
There are reasons that convicted fellons should be allowed to vote and ones that they should not.
“and moved away from a life of incarceration.”
Outside of Trump’s power entirely. Outside the federal governments power – except in regard to federal crimes and Trump already passed Criminal Justice reform which reduced lots of sentences.
So at the end of this – Trump has already done much of what you asked.
What he has not done is outside of his power.
John: I work 3 jobs in the summer, I won’t have time to weed my way through these long posts. Please boil down your questions into managable pieces. In fact one of my jobs is as a reader for production companies…, rule of thumb for a project logline>> the closer to ten words the better.
Not that I’m asking you to limit posts to ten words, just maybe not the bardic versions?
thanks ahead of time, man.
Hellvis – I have read a couple of thousand scripts in my time. What is your problem? Ran out of aspirin? 😉
“John: I work 3 jobs in the summer, ”
I work 3 year round.
“I won’t have time to weed my way through these long posts.”
So
” Please boil down your questions into managable pieces.”
Did.
“In fact one of my jobs is as a reader for production companies…, rule of thumb for a project logline>> the closer to ten words the better.”
I have been published many times in professional technical journals.
I do not need writing lessons.
Regardless, I am not getting paid to post here or to educate you.
You get what I want to give you. However well or badly it is written. However verbose or succinct it is.
I expect nothing from you. I am entitled to nothing from you.
You are entitled to nothing from me.
Reply, don’t.
But do not tell me how to comment.
Soothe BLM protesters? No. While there are a list of things that we could come up with, I’m going to bet you don’t agree with any given your stated position. Here’s something Trump could do immediately to symbolize his at least GAF…, he could immediately take steps to block any federal money toward the training, and supply, of local police to the abolition of chokeholds, kneeling on necks, qualified immunity (with a detailed discussion on a federal level of what qualified immunity means).
Begin with one thing and start to move in a good direction, the only true strategy to work out of any crisis situation.
So many questionable statements in your post, John. It’ll take me awhile to work through them one by one. But here’s the first response.
Hellvis – I will get behind getting rid of qualified immunity when government officials get rid of qualified immunity, this includes judges,legislators, governors, mayors, etc.
And that’s where it begins.
Hellvis – one of the things I have learned from the Dems is where it begins is where it ends.
Apologies for the multiple replies…, it looked for awhile like my laptop ate one.
“Soothe BLM protesters? No.”
I thought you said yes ?
“While there are a list of things that we could come up with, I’m going to bet you don’t agree with any given your stated position. Here’s something Trump could do immediately to symbolize his at least GAF…, he could immediately take steps to block any federal money toward the training, and supply, of local police to the abolition of chokeholds, kneeling on necks”
He did already. Or more accurately he order Barr to do so. To develop standards for police training and chokeholds and … and to condition federal funds on implimenting that training and then on demonstrating that it was effective.
So Trump has gone further than you asked.
“qualified immunity (with a detailed discussion on a federal level of what qualified immunity means).”
Qualified imminutiy was created by the courts. It is possible for congress to eliminate it – maybe. But Trump has ZERO power with regard to QI. Trump is opposed to gutting QI, he is wrong. QI was a huge mistake on the part of the courts.
BTW the courts could gut it instantly. Thomas has in dissent repeatedly said QI is unconstitutional judge made law.
“Begin with one thing and start to move in a good direction, the only true strategy to work out of any crisis situation.”
So Trump has already done everything that is in his power that you would have him do.
“So many questionable statements in your post, John.”
You again engaged in mind reading and failed.
There is probably not a single specific police reform that I do not support.
There is probably not a single specific police reform that I have not been publicly arguing for, for atleast a decade.
Just end federal funds to local police PERIOD.
End providing local police with military equipment.
Radically reduce SWAT teams.
Eliminate no knock warrants.
Eliminate middle of the night warrants.
(there are extremely limited instances where either of these might be needed, but those should be very rare and the burden should be very high).
Train police on deescalation.
DeTrain police on this nonsense that they have to dominate every single interaction.
End Qualified immunity.
End Civil asset forfeiture.
Legalize all drugs.
Move traffic law enforcement to a separate govenrment entity without arrest power.
End policing for profit.
End police quota’s
Make it far easier to fire police officers (and all govenrment employees – like teachers)
End overcharging to get plea bargains.
There is a long long list of other reforms I would support.
But not defunding or abolishing the police.
By and large, your position that these problems aren’t national, but are rather state problems is, writ large just philosophy driven. Not in the realm of practical solutions to large problems. It’s overly simplistic, rhetorical, and ineffective. Through this lengs I’ll address your points individually when I find the time.
“By and large, your position that these problems aren’t national, but are rather state problems is, writ large just philosophy driven. Not in the realm of practical solutions to large problems. It’s overly simplistic, rhetorical, and ineffective. Through this lengs I’ll address your points individually when I find the time.”
Nope, it is constitutional.
While SCOTUS since Wickard V. Filburn has given the federal government way too much power to interfere in the states that it does not constitutionally have, policing is still solidly a state and local matter.
All federal crimes are either related to other federal laws – like it is a crime to file fraudulent IRS tax returns, or they are related to national security, or interstate issues that are the domain of the federal government.
If you do not like this – change the constitutional.
But right now the fact is there is only a narrow domain for federal action regarding state and local policing.
This is also why Trump can not just order governors what to do regarding Covid, or riots.
+1
We will keep the deplorable kulak untermenschen scum out! Forward to the glorious people’s collective utopia comrade.
Yes we can!
The Left doesn’t just want racism and white supremacy to be true, they NEED it to be true. Oh sooo badly. Just like a mother with Munchausens Syndrome by Proxy needs a sick kid. Poor oppressed blacks gives them someone to help, even if the blacks are mostly the ones oppressing themselves. That is also why you get all these silly remedies for racism, like sacking Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben. And Gone With The Wind.
White Liberal Democrats are a mentally ill bunch – totally screwed up in the head.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Squeeky, et al:
OT: I seen this story the other I thought related to your recent comments about currency vs money, about an 8 yr old’s experience with the issue. We’re Keynesians kissin all Kunta Kinta’s azzes now anyway. LOL;)
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/another-8-year-old-criminal-mastermind-arrested
UH, NPR corrected the report and issued a retraction. What’s the issue?
By the way, when does JT stop lying about “Russian collusion”? A correction from him is long overdue, but I’d settle for him to just quit repeating the same lie.
+1
(I tried posting this earlier, but it posted unthreaded.)
I think that might not be on the mandate currently. Lol. It would indeed be nice to at least play along like he’s not doing Barr’s work on the Mueller report though.
Why did they report nonsense in the first place ?
“By the way, when does JT stop lying about “Russian collusion”? A correction from him is long overdue, but I’d settle for him to just quit repeating the same lie.”
What error has JT made and what is your evidence ?
So far pretty much NOTHING that was said about “Russian Collusion” by the press, the left or the media has proven true.
If you think otherwise – please tell me what it is that you think has actually proved True ?
Mr. Turley, you write “To its credit, NPR admitted the error in this case.”
You should do the same: admit your errors.
NPR continues to do serious damage to its reputation by confirming it’s egregious confirmation bias in the stories it chooses to report, the unsupported assumptions they make and in the spin they place on them. NPR reporters are amateurs with an agenda.
NPR is a Disgraced and US Gov’t should stop funding them, let their left wing supporters provide the funds. I think they should be SUED and the women should hire the same lawyer that the Covington student hired, he is the best in the country and has already forced CNN to settle and sued others who will settle.
I use to be an avid listener of NPR but no more, their views and reporters distort and shade their stories, they have a political agenda
IMO the remedy is not a lawsuit for defamation. As Professor Turley points out there are too many roadblocks to a meaningful recovery. The remedy for this and many, many other examples in the last decade of extremely biased “reporting” by NPR is to remove federal funding. But, Congress has even less courage than the scum who scared this woman so badly. NPR should have changed its lead: “Wake up America. That could have been your wife, your daughter, your mother.”
She should find the NPR office. Drive a truck there. Ram the first person who walks out. If the person rammed is not from NPR she can hide behind the NPR defense here
1. NPR should be sued because of the multiple false and misleading statements in the article intended to mislead and then to cast aspersions on the victims not the perpetrators.
2. NPR should be sued because in a small town like L’ville, many could discern her identity. Let’s see – a 46 year old woman driving a silver, sedan, with obvious make and model, and possibly year by people who know cars is called an extremist by a news article that entirely misleads the public and is entirely false
3.NPR should be sued because even with this fake example pulled down, the best they could find to validate their false and hateful story is a picture from 2017 in Charlottesville.
How sad that the people of the US are being misled every day by 95% of the press – just like NPR did this week. Fake, false, lies are not news.
“Protesters” are Armed terrorists. You flee by any means possible. NPR is not an objective source, and must not be Federally funded.
Unfortunately this incident will paint all the incidents where right wing extremists acted at fault as left wing lies.
Unfortunately too many left wing lies are told everyday. to support the left wing extremists. 95% of the violence comes from the left, Antifa, and their DNC sheep. We all know where the violence comes from and who is cheering it on – have you been alive the last 3 weeks???
The FBI and other agencies have stated that the Antifa movement was not involved in the arson and/or looting. They were involved in the demonstrations, along with just about all facets of society. It is also known that the Antifa movement is more a bunch of groups blown out of proportion by the right wing media. There have been documented reports of right wing radicals involved in the rioting. The lies exist on both sides. The quintessential liar is Trump. His entire gang supports and backs up his lies. Sure the left lies, but compared to the right and the White House, we’re talking choir boys on the left.
The violence coming from the left is not from the left but from madness that is found in society waiting for an opportunity to riot, burn, loot, kill. That has nothing to do with left or right. That is simply scum. For you to attach it to the left or right shows how easily influenced you are. You will probably vote for Trump, the greatest liar of all time, and a blithering idiot to boot.
“The violence coming from the left is not from the left but from madness that is found in society waiting for an opportunity to riot, burn, loot, kill. That has nothing to do with left or right. ”
It has a lot to do with the left. The promoters are Marxists and anarchists. They get their bread from the left. Take a look at the party of the Mayor and perhaps governor where the biggest problems are occurring.
A week before lockdown protestors with the same pent up anger, had armed protests.
They protested where protests of government make sense – city hall, the capitol – not wendy’s and macy’s.
They burnt nothing. They toppled no statues, the did not shoot anyone, threw no rocks or bricks, there was no looting, there was no fighting. No one was arrested, they were cordial to the police.
Some of them were black.
That’s is what you need to do if you want my respect.
“They burnt nothing. They toppled no statues, the did not shoot anyone, threw no rocks or bricks, there was no looting, there was no fighting. No one was arrested, they were cordial to the police.”
The left acts like pigs leaving everything a mess.
Trace the simplest document, the Steele Dossier, and see how the left continuously lied about that document with headlines based on it or its spinoffs over and over again. That is unquestionable proof that the left has been lying. There are so many things like the Steele Dossier to prove the mendacity of the left that your comment above looks a bit foolish.
Take note of this quote “The Washington Post has never corrected a false reporting of an actual holding of a court in a column by Jennifer Rubin.”. These mistakes or lies seem to happen while your eyes are closed.
Allan, the whole Steele dossier has not been refuted. Some aspects have been deemed questionable. Others not. Care to be specific about the points you find questionable?
I’m guessing you might be okay with the aspects Steele came up with when the dossier was commissioned orignally by the Washington Free Beacon? It began as oppo research for Repub establishment in the early days of Trump’s candidacy. Maybe share which aspects you agree with in that respect?
“the whole Steele dossier has not been refuted.”
Hellvis, The essence has been refuted and of course in all lies one can sprinkle a bit of truth that is meaningless standing alone. I await your significant points where the Steele Dossier proved something. It was a creation of the DNC, Hillary, and foreign actors that included Russians.
“It began as oppo research for Repub establishment in the early days of Trump’s candidacy.”
This demonstrates an absolutle lack of understanding. The Steele Dossier was created by a company that worked for all sides. Thus one separates the work product by who paid for the information, when etc. Your statement demonstrates total ignorance and by this time should be laughed at.
Gainesville is persistent in his lies.
But does he have to be so stupid when lying? Can’t he up his game from the elementary school level to middle school?
So, again, what aspects of the Steele dossier do you find questionable? And the dossier was originally commissioned by the Washington Free Beacon, what points did you agree with when its purpose was to dig up oppo on Trump early in his campaign?
These questions could not be more specific.
In contest the entire dossier. That is why it is you who has to prove your point.
Are you challenged intellectually? What differentiates the Steele Dossier from other opposition research? Steele is the responsible name behind the Steele Dossier. That is what is under discussion. Don’t conflate everything else with what was produced in the Steele Dossier. Tell us the most significant points you still think are true that have meaning with regard to the discussions that existed when it was released.
Your claim, your burden of proof…
But the thought crosses my mind that you might not actually know what’s in the dossier but have just rather parroted out talking points from the media sources you favor. That combined with your preferred tactic of trying to flip the script when you get pressed by deflection and refusing to read any sources posted in response has led me to link the coloring book version. You don’t even have to read, just listen…
https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/07/politics/dossier-two-years-later/index.html
We can discuss your favorite points on the other side. Enjoy.
Hellvis, I already answered you that I contest the entire Steele Dossier and why. You are the one that says in context to the discussions it has significant and meaningful content that is true. That leaves the ball in your park because I reject the piece as a whole. To most that read it the Dossier was laughable but I guess a person like you would believe everything it implied. Doesn’t demonstrate much of an intellect but that is life.
Carter Page is mentioned quite a bit as if he was in cahoots with the Kremlin. The FBI doesn’t think so. Quite the contrary Carter Page seems to have been an American asset.
Everything in the Steele Dossier that has been proven to be correct was from public news sources over the prior 15 years.
And was mostly things like Trump had the miss world contest in Moscow.
Not a single secret contact claim has every been verified. Nearly all have been proven false – atleast to the extent it is ever poissible to prove negatives.
Near universally withing the govenrment – even among elected democrats the Steele Dossier is today considered an albatross.
Its mere mention in DOJ or FBI memo’s is now considered evidence of bias or misconduct.
It is possible that Durham is investigating Brennan for misconduct related to including it as part of the ICA – there are numerous government sources at the time that claimed that it was either total crap or deliberate russian disinformation.
There is a memo from atleast one analyst from 2016 that claims that the most likely intention of the steele Dossier was to create exactly the political firestorm that it did. That analyst concluded that Putin’s personal animus for Clinton was high – that he hated her. But the same analyst said that Putin hated Trump atleast as much, and that the Steele Dossier was fed By Putin to the Clinton compaign deliberately, knowing that it would pur republicans and democrats at each others throats.
That Putin expected Hillary to win and that he expected her to go public with the Dossier late in the campaign and that after whe was elected Republicans would spend the next 4 years investigating her.
Does anyone doubt that would have been the case had Clinton won ?
John, of course you are correct but Hellvis is attempting to get me to bash the Steele Dossier based on something that is not in it. It’s part of the talking points that directs his thinking and actions since more than talking points clutters his mind.
I am shocked at how much has fallen apart.
The only pro Trump XFH story I do not think has been fully confirmed is that the maltese professor is a western asset.
There is still very strong evidence of that but Horowitz purportedly checked FBI records and he never worked for FBI,
But aside from that pretty much every “right wing conspiracy story” about Trump/Russia has proven true.
When Alex Jones has a better track record that Anderson Cooper – the media is seriously in the tank.
“I do not think has been fully confirmed is that the maltese professor is a western asset.There is still very strong evidence of that but Horowitz purportedly checked FBI records and he never worked for FBI,”
I have heard reports that Mifsud was possibly activated by leftist Israeli intelligence friends of Obama. There apparently is an unregistered agent of Israel mentioned in conjunction with the Mueller investigation of Papdopolous. O nce Israel and Obama are mentioned in the same paragraph things become very murky so I won’t say any more.
Mifsuds ties are heavily to US and UK inteligence.
There is pretty much zero possibility he is a russian asset – if he is the IK has been compromised at near the highest levels and the FBI too.
But SO FAR there appears no evidence Mifsud was a US or UK asset – but he did provide training and education for US and UK intelligence.
John, that is my understanding as well. There are probably a multiplicity of reasons for the actions taken by the Obama Administration against Trump et al. Potentially one of those reasons is the Iran Deal.
I do eventually expect confirmation that Mifsud is actually a western agent.
But Today, we can only proof he was a director of a very western friendly training institute.
” that Mifsud is actually a western agent”
Without question.
I would further note that if Mifsud was a Russian agent – he was an incredibly valuable one.
He had very high access in the UK and good access in the US. There is no sane possibility that Russia would have risked exposing him by making contact with Papadoulis would was a nobody.
“Everything in the Steele Dossier that has been proven to be correct was from public news sources over the prior 15 years.”
So what,
“Not a single secret contact claim has every been verified. Nearly all have been proven false – atleast to the extent it is ever poissible to prove negatives”
As someone who often poses the question ‘just because you say so?’…well, I just love your sources on this (completely false statement).
“As someone who often poses the question ‘just because you say so?’…well, I just love your sources on this (completely false statement).”
No because we now have the FBI saying for in 2017. We have Mueller saying so. We have horowitz saying so. We have the state department saying so in 2016.
Separately, I have not been selling snake oil for 4 years. My credibility and integrity are intact.
I can not compel you to accept what is say just because “I say so”, but by measurable standards my unsourced remarks are objectively far more likely to be correct than say Schiff, or Warner, or you.
If you want to be believed – just because “you say so” – then you have to be careful not to make mistakes, not to push lies, not to repeat obviously false or nonsensical BS.
Credibilty and integrity are earned – I and the many here who did not buy into this obviously idiotic nonsense, from the begining, can expect our unsourced remarks to be taken credibly – we have earned that.
Those of you who have been fawning over rachel maddow for 4 years. Should ponder the fact that Alex Jones is an order of magnitude more credible. Being less credible that Alex Jones should be a huge slap upside the head.
But for so many of you it is not.
Many times in my life I have discovered that something that I truly beleived was false. Those moments have shaped my life.
If you can not see when you have made a serious mistake, when you have been lied to, and adjust your values and who you trust accordingly, you are doomed to be played for the rest of your life.
Do not trust me – your not obligated to, and you should not. But you have no right to demand proof from me. And you do not have the credibility and integrity to expect that I will trust what you say. In fact your credibility and integrity as well as that of the press and the left is so bad that I rarely bother to verify that you are wrong anymore.
That is the price for repeated error, That is the price for constant false accusations.
Regardless, do not trust me. But DO go out and check things out. Do your best to find raw sources – not left or right press spin – find the actual FBI memos or the public copies of the emails, reports etc. Verify things.
Then when you are done – think about who has lied to you and who has not, and adjust who you trust in the future accordingly.
Just as you have lost the right to be trusted – so have the people who lied to you that you beleived.
Maturing and gaining wisdom requires learning from those failures. Just as I do not trust you without bullet proof proof, you should not trust those that lied to you.
And you should be especially hard on those who have made false accusations.
Errors of fact undermine credibility.
But false accusations are a moral failure and they cost your integrity.
A single false accusation can destroy the reputation of a lifetime.
It is wise not to make any accusations you are not absolutely sure of.
And Allan, no, I’m not trying to get you to ‘bash the dossier’ I’m just trying to get you to isolate one piece of the dossier that you dismissed in a broadly sweeping way and say what you find questionable about it.
Hellvis, you wanted an issue and I provided you with exactly what you asked for. The Dossier implicated things about Carter Page that weren’t true. It appears that you do not know what is in the Dossier. You now know some of it and some of the BS it contained in its references to Carter Page. John went further than me and explained even more. Now it is your time to convince us that Carter Page was some type of Russian asset. Instead you are running away. Alternatively you can prove John wrong ““Not a single secret contact claim has every been verified. Nearly all have been proven false – atleast to the extent it is ever poissible to prove negatives””
You won’t do either because you don’t discuss. You throw out BS hoping some sticks. Go run away again.
I am not allan.
My “this is all an anti Trump destabilization campaign” thesis is confirmed
https://thegreggjarrett.com/our-goal-is-to-get-trump-out-admits-black-lives-matter-co-founder-who-is-a-trained-marxist/
BLM should be charged with RICO by a class action of victimized business owners and sued into oblivion
for starters
unfortunately there are also some Israelis who have cultivated BLM
but i think there are a larger number of wise Jewish people in America who can see where BLM is going — not just hating on whites in America by which they most certainly includes Jews; but also linking up with the longstanding international left policy of ending Israel
https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/israel-lobby-sees-black-lives-matter-major-strategic-threat
in light of this, BLM receiving big funding from Geo Soros who is one of the richest Jewish people in the world should trouble regular Jewish folks deeply, it seems to me
in this chaos the enemy is not an ethnic group, except for white people who are being singled out; so, it may be tempting for white folks to view the Other as an enemy reflexively. we need to be smarter than this. there are a lot of normal law abiding people of all races who have been harmed by the chaos
but let them speak out against it because “Silence — about the racism aimed at whites now– is violence” Time to speak up if you oppose the awful hate being aimed at average regular white folks now from the anarchists and radicals and social media haters and being fomented in universities and disgusting newspapers
if we have to group up to survive, we most certainly will, with or without allies. let the people of goodwill who respect law and order speak up. i see some are doing that, even though the media editors drown them out, there are some excellent black Americans calling for a return to law and order, and I know the decent and good people of the Jewish community nationwide, which has already under pressure from the likes of Diblasio restricting all their freedom of religious practice, in so many ways none the least of which by restricting funeral practices, really just awful and totally pointless socalled pandemic restrictons; but many good people are starting to question the long standing favor they have shown towards the corrupt Democrat party that uses and abuses them
this month of awful attacks on police and law and order and regular main street business is very dangerous and already out of hand. it can and probably will get worse. whitey will not be the only victim. decent people everywhere are being harmed in this festival of chaos and hate
There is no “seems” – Page was a US asset probably of CIA. The FBI knew that at the time they went to the FISA court.
They LIED to FISA court about that. That is one thing that is likely to be prosecuted as a crime.
Further Page worked FOR the FBI previously – I beleive in a U1 related sting in about 2013. that resulted in prosecution of several russians.
Most of this has been reported in the press since 2017, but it has all been not only subsequently confirmed but confirmed that the XFH team knew about it by Jan 2017 – except for the fact that Page had been working for the FBI.
In a very odd twist, Horowitz confirmed that the XFH team knew page worked for probably CIA, but they did NOT figure out that he had previously worked for FBI. Which is really odd.
Yes, John, but I was waiting for Hellvis to make an a$$ of himself. However, maybe it is better that you let him know in advance who Carter Page was. You are so much nicer than me.
Deflection and avoidance noted.
destabilization conspiracy thesis confirmed
https://thegreggjarrett.com/our-goal-is-to-get-trump-out-admits-black-lives-matter-co-founder-who-is-a-trained-marxist/
civil RICO cases coming
discovery will be very interesting. we want the STAFF LISTS, VOLUNTEER LISTS, AND MOST OF ALL —
THE DONOR LISTS FOR BLM
You have been provided a substantial portion of the Steele Dossier to consider chewing on. What you are doing is running away.
Hellvis – how much of the Free Beacon material did Steele keep? And if he kept it, how much ended up in the FISA application? Because according to Steele, under oath, he was not sure any of it was true.
i suppose that’s between you and the Free Beacon there, Paul
Paul, don’t confuse Hellvis. He has enough of a problem figuring out who he really is.
Ahh, one of my favorite quotes ever is “never surrender your hard won not knowing”…, so, indeed, I am constantly on the search. I will admit that freely. Gleefully even.
One of my main goals, however, is not to be such a disingenuous and clueless b hole such as yourself, Allan. So thanks for the lesson.
Despite all your attempts you have turned out to be that “disingenuous and clueless b hole ”
Change your alias again and you will still to be that disingenuous and clueless b hole.
As I can only aspire to be.
So, in your normal skating away from the question, you cite Carter Page from the dossier. Sketchy part of the report, as I granted you in the beginning of this latest shite show of a discussion with the obfuscator that is Allan. Not unproven, just a mix up as to who exactly Page met with in Russia and what his exact role was.
And the Mueller investigation was *not* based on the dossier, so what does it matter anyway?
What are your thoughts on Trump lying about the Moscow project? About Putin’s help in the election? About the pee tape?
Not that it really matters now because Trump is clearly on the way out, but your sweeping denigration of the dossier is just too simple. And inaccurate. Not that you don’t have the license and the freedom to be so mistaken, that’s your right. But it doesn’t come without consequence when making false claims.
Hellvis, use the brain which provides critical thinking skills.
The Steele Dossier sought to destroy Carter Page and make him look like a Russian asset when he has been proven to be an American asset.
You asked ” Care to be specific about the points you find questionable?” I provided you with what you asked but you are unable to handle it and now you accuse me of being an obfuscator because you are unable to handle an answered request. What you do (as usual) is change the subject (run away) You say,. “And the Mueller investigation was *not* based on the dossier, so what does it matter anyway?” That tells us your words are meaningless and you are not credible. I am still waiting for you to produce the in context significant parts of the Dossier that you think are true and meaningful to the discussions that have been ongoing on this blog.
You have demonstrated a big mouth and a small brain. Let’s see if you can up your game.
What was Carter Page’s role ?
He was acting as a US asset. He reported his meetings with Russians and had been doing so since 2013.
BTW the same was true of Flynn – he was briefed before each metting and debriefed after.
But lets assume that Page was NOT a US asset.
Americans meet with foreigners – including Russians all the time. It is not inherently suspicious.
Page met with russians on energy matters and was doing so before he was tapped by Trump.
Myriads of people met with Russians – Bill Clinton spoke to russians and was paid 500K for doing so in this time period.
Mueller’s investigation was based on all the same evidence that was used to spy on Papadoulis, and Page, to get the FISA warrant.
It was ALL discredited by the FBI by Jan 2017. There is FBI memos and emails to that effect.
Horowitz confirmed this.
There was no basis to START Mueller. Nor has Mueller retroactively found anything that would provide such a basis – even though that would be illegal.
All Mueller is not the Steele Dossier. But there is nothing used to start Mueller that the FBI had not discredited by Jan 2017.
Separately – there really is very little more than the Steele Dossier.
XFH was based primarily on it. Mueller was based primarily on it. The Page Warrants were based primarily on it.
The few addtional things are all public now, and those were all resolved by Oct 2016.
Trump did not lie about the Moscow Project – Cohen did.
I would further note that if Trump was Putin’s favorite – why did the project fail ?
If Putin was colluding, pushing forward on Trump Tower Moscow would have provided the perfect cover for meetings with russians.
But at the same time Bill Clinton was being given 500K speaking fees by Russis Trump was being given the cold shoulder on the Trump tower deal.
The Trump tower deal is an inductive proof there was no collustion and that Putin did not like Trump