CNN has become the leading target of conservatives objecting to a bias in the media in both attacking Donald Trump and giving Hillary Clinton a pass on her own controversies. Now Headline News has blurred the name “Trump” on the tee-shirt of a hero former police officer being interviewed for saving a baby. It appears that someone viewed his shirt as unacceptable to be shown as if it were profanity. This followed a controversy at CNN where a Trump tweet was edited to remove the word “Crooked” in front of Hillary Clinton’s name.
Continue reading “CNN Blurs Out Trump Tee-Shirt In Interview With Hero Former Police Officer”
Category: Media
Saudi Arabia has long been an exporter of extremist Islamic values as part of its Wahhabi sect. Despite our close alliance with the Kingdom, it imposes radical Islamic Sharia principles and denies basic rights to women, non-Muslims, and dissidents. In the latest outrage from Saudi Arabia, a court has sentenced a man to ten years in prison and 2,000 lashes for merely expressing his atheism on Twitter. It appears that the Saudi and Sharia courts are terrified that people could actually inform other Saudis of alternatives to Islam or different values. The fear and anger only appeared to grow when the Kingdom could not coerce the 28-year-old who refused to repent and stood by his human right to express his faith. We previously discussed this case, but Saudi Arabia is proceeding with the whippings as this man remains defiant.
I have previously written that I believe that Trump supporters have a legitimate complaint about some of the coverage on the mainstream media. I say “some” because Trump has clearly generated the majority of bad press on his own and the media has merely covered the controversies. However, there has been some valid objections to how media has jumped on Trump statements, even positions that mirror those once held by the Clintons or currently held by significant numbers of Americans. Critics insist that media is unrelenting on Trump coverage and interviews while far less aggressive with Clinton or her controversies in coverage or interviews.
CNN has taken the brunt of much of the criticism from Trump supporters who commonly dismiss the network as the “Clinton News Network.” That is unfair in my view but a recent article on CNN.com has raised this issue again. Entitled “Trump wants GOP to court black voters — then slams voting rights for felons,” the column suggests that Trump was somehow hypocritical for making a pitch for African-American votes while opposing voting for felons. Moreover, the assumption that felons are somehow synonymous with blacks went by without any apparent objection or question. Had Trump made such an association, I am fairly certain he would have pilloried. Moreover, the highly negative coverage given his pitch to the black community raises valid questions of the balance in reporting analogous pitches from the Clinton campaign.
Below is my column in the Washington Post on Donald Trump’s proposal of “extreme vetting” for immigrants to the United States. While some have suggested that the proposal would violate the Constitution, I do not agree. There are ample concerns or objections that can be raised as a matter of policy. However, such vetting is neither unconstitutional nor unprecedented. Particularly if implemented with congressional approval, I believe that such a heightened level of scrutiny would pass constitutional muster. Conversely, this is clearly something that Congress could prevent legislatively.
Continue reading “Trump’s Extreme Vetting: More Of A Political Than A Constitutional Question”
Fox News and conservative media has been reporting that black protesters have been hunting white citizens in retaliation for the recent police shooting, including a reporter who said in a YouTube statement that he had to leave the area in fear of being killed. The question is, if these reports are true, why there has been no hate crime reporting or Justice Department investigation. There is also a sharp conflict raised over CNN’s reporting of the statements of Sylville Smith’s sister. The sharp contrast in coverage suggests either exaggeration from one side or avoidance from another. There of course should only be one side in the reporting of news, but this is the latest example of the reason why so many mistrust the media.
Like many Muslim countries, Turkey has a long and troubling history of child brides and arranged marriages. Some Islamic clerics have maintained that there can be no age limitation on child brides. They often note that Muhammad married Aisha when she was seven and consummated the marriage at nine years old.Just as Pakistan recently struck down its protection for girls from such abuse, the Turkish Constitutional Court annulled a provision that punishes all sexual acts against children under the age of 15 as “sexual abuse.” It is a major set back for girls and women in Turkey and another example of how the Islamic fundamentalists have taken over this once secular country under the authoritarian rule of our ally Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Below is my column in USA Today on Donald Trump’s statement that he thinks that American citizens should be tried at Guantanamo Bay with other “terrible people” accused of terrorism. I have previously criticized Hillary Clinton for her views on free speech and executive power. However, the suggestion that U.S. citizens could be sent for faux trials at Gitmo is truly chilling. Here is the column.
Continue reading “TRUMP’S TRIBUNALS: THE GOP NOMINEE EMBRACES USE OF GITMO TO TRY CITIZENS”
Cartoons and Muslim countries have a long and troubling history, including the Danish cartoons that led to a global spasm of violence where Muslims killed Christians and burned churches in retaliation of an insult to Mohammad. The fact that cartoons are satire or that this is an exercise of free speech has little meaning in countries that punish blasphemy and many which follow medieval Sharia law. Many view Jordan as one of the more progressive Arab countries, but that reputation has been severely undermined by a ridiculous and abusive arrest of Jordanian writer Nahed Hattar for merely sharing a cartoon deemed offensive to Muslims. Notably, the cartoon actually mocked terrorists and their expectations of virgins and heavenly rewards for murdering people. Mocking the terrorists over such beliefs was deemed as a criminal insult to Islam.
As made clear in a recent column, I am no fan of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) or its manifestly negligent decision to choose Rio as the location of this year’s Olympics. For the last year, the IOC has been in the full denial mode as various experts detailed the gross failures of Brazil to address shortfalls in pollution control and infrastructure (including the recent controversy over pools turning green and smelly). Even with the health of athletes at stake, IOC officials have dismissed every health warning concerning the raw sewage in the water events and the rampant crime around the Olympic facilities. The most recent example came with the latest robbery of athletes. In this case, an Olympic star and three other athletes were held and robbed at gunpoint at a gasoline station. Despite public accounts coming from Lochte and his mother, the IOC assured the world media that the story was absolutely false. Nothing to see here. Of course, the story was true but the IOC seems to put truth just behind the health of athletes on the list of its priorities. UPDATE: The police have released videotapes and accounts that sharply contradict the account of Lochte and his friends.
I have long been a critic of military tribunals as constitutionally dubious and practically ineffectual institutions. The tribunals at Guantanamo Bay have resulted in few actual trials and undermined the standing of the United States as a nation committed to the rule of law. The principle rationale cited by former officials in defense of Gitmo has been that it would not be used to try citizens. Now in a deeply disturbing interview, GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump has stated that he might try citizens at Gitmo — maintaining a shadow court system for stripping citizens of basic rights of due process just a few miles off the United States shore.
Continue reading “Trump: Americans May Be Tried In Military Tribunals Under His Administration”
As we previously discussed, Twitter has become a lightening rod for the free speech community — repeatedly accused of content-based censorship and a liberal bias. Now Twitter is again being accused of a departure from the policy of unfettered free speech in the filtering of negative comments against President Barack Obama. The culprit of this latest violation is former Twitter CEO Dick Costolo who in 2015 allegedly ordered employees to remove abusive or offensive replies to President Obama during a Q & A session.
Continue reading “Twitter Accused (Again) Of Violating Free Speech Principles”
England has seen the rise of calls for speech prosecutions, including calls from powerful politicians for crackdowns on insulting or offensive comments. We have previously discussed the alarming rollback on free speech rights in the West, particularly in England ( here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here). The rapid decline of free speech in England has been both chilling and frightening for civil libertarians as the country appears to have abandoned this once defining right of Western Civilization. Now, a Manchester man reportedly has been arrested and sentenced for making “grossly offensive” comments about Muslims on Facebook. Stephen Bennett, 39, (who has a Muslim mother-in-law and sister-in-law) has been sentenced to 180 hours of unpaid work and a 12-month community order for expressing his views.
My friend Professor Eugene Volokh raised an interesting case out of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) where the commission reinstated what many would consider a facially invalid harassment lawsuit over a worker wearing a simple “Don’t Tread on Me” cap. The cap was depicted as “racially offensive to African Americans” because “the flag was designed by Christopher Gadsden, a ‘slave trader & owner of slaves.’” It is a bizarre case but the concern over the fluid standard for such cases was magnified by a response to Gene from Harvard Law professor Noah Feldman who added that a worker “Saying at work that ‘Hillary Clinton shouldn’t be president because women shouldn’t work full-time’” could also be a legitimate basis for sanctions.
By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor.
One of the reasons I seldom watch television is that I’ve grown tired of having my intelligence insulted by ever increasing numbers of childish, and inane commercials which offer nothing of substance to convince me why I must buy their product or service. The mindset and goal of advertisers to race to the lowest common denominator who they perceive lacks the capacity to think for themselves.
Yet one possible relief from the deluge of televisions scorns such as the endless sitcoms, television shopping networks, religious charlatans, and political advertisements, could be found in the modern epic and magnificent Olympic Games, with its spectacular and well choreographed performances, light, movement, and cultural flavor of the host nations. The tradition of bring the flame and the showing of the athleticism and conglomeration of the peoples of the world surely brings a true sense of awe and wonder to those ancients if somehow they blessed the clairvoyance to envision what would become of theirs millennia later.
Eighty years ago, the Games of the XI Olympiad was the first to feature a television broadcast bringing forth to an eventual world wide audience the ability to witness the Olympics without the burden and cost of live attendance. Unfortunately, it has given rise to the sports broadcaster style of news, the dark side of which is the seemingly endless need to describe the minutia in every detail, flapping jaws incessantly, and often destroying the poignancy of the moment. We the audience are capable of understanding what we witness. So to all the Olympics broadcasters of the world, do us a favor–Shut UP!
Continue reading “Attention Broadcasters Of The Olympics Worldwide: SHUT UP!”