Category Archives: Journalism

CNN’s Activist-Anchor Don Lemon: Stupid And Sanctimonious

Affirmative Action, Crime, Criminal Injustice, Intelligence, Journalism, Propaganda, Race, Racism

I am not sure what is worse about Don Lemon, CNN’s deeply stupid host, who held the fort (or the funny farm) during the weekend of George Zimmerman’s acquittal; his racial agenda or his retardation.

Below is an example of a Don-Lemon conducted exchange. Lemon is not working with much (he cautions against drawing a “false equivalent” …), but, like “Judge Glenda Hatchett,” who doesn’t know what constitutes an aggravated assault, Lemon retains his plumb position as activist-anchor.

On July 14, Lemon told a commiserating co-anchor that, and I paraphrase, “People accuse you of having an agenda when in fact you are a journalist, trying to make them see certain things beyond their biases.”

The job of a journalist is to report the facts, not to nudge viewers into the politically pleasing opinions that are held by the cognoscenti at CNN.

But there is something way worse than Lemon’s blatant, aggrieved black-man schtick; Lemon’s stupidity is worse than his sanctimony.

In the transcript below, Lemon doesn’t challenge the guest with whom he agrees; he cheers her on with giggles. David Webb in the opposition is only half the man he is on Fox News, which is a shame:

“So let’s bring in our panel now. I have a feeling that we’re going to have to separate all of these guys. Attorney and TV host Mo Ivory joins us from Atlanta, along with diversity and inclusion expert Buck Davis. In New York, we have radio host and New York City Tea Party co-founder David Webb.

So, Mo, I’m going to start with you first. How does President Obama’s statement affect the fallout from the Zimmerman verdict, if at all?”

MO IVORY, ATTORNEY/TV HOST: Sure, Don. I think the statement gives us a little bit of comfort, and he is the president of the United States and we want to hear from him. We need to hear from him. It’s especially comforting after saying that Trayvon could have been his son. He would have looked like him. I wanted to hear him say something. So it brought me some comfort, but just a little bit because I’m still angry, I’m still upset. I’m trying to process this verdict and figure out where we go from here. So it’s a wonderful thing that he did that but —

LEMON: What are you angry about, Mo? Mo, mo, mo.

(CROSSTALK)

IVORY: — that a murderer got away with murder? No, David, what am I angry about? That you’re asking me that question.

LEMON: No, it’s Don! It’s Don. It’s Don.

IVORY: Ok, Don, I’m angry because a murderer got away with murder. I’m angry because in our system, George Zimmerman’s brother Robert just said that Trayvon had plans for George Zimmerman, and that that rhetoric is going on. A boy was walking to the store and he was getting a snack and he got murdered. And a murderer got away with it yesterday. That’s what I’m mad about.

LEMON: Do you have to be mad about it? Because, listen. People don’t like verdicts all the time. And do you think it’s productive to be angry? I mean, maybe it’s not the right emotion that you’re — I don’t know —

IVORY: No, Don. It’s the right emotion. No, it’s the right emotion. I’m angry about it. I’m angry that we live in the society where this kind of thing can still happen. And that we’re having this conversation like, oh my gosh, I don’t even understand why people are pulling a race card.

You don’t have to pull the race card. It’s out. We live with it everyday. We wake up and it’s out. We go to work and it’s out. We get in our cars and it’s out. We go to trials, and the race card is out. Nobody has to pull it because it lives outside in America every day. That’s why I’m angry. And I think everybody, not just African- Americans, everybody should be angry a 17-year-old boy was murdered in cold blood and the murderer is free.

LEMON: Okay. All right. Mo, let’s get in – Buck, I promise you’re going to get to talk this time. Mo, why are you shaking your head in disagreement here? David? David?

DAVID WEBB, NYC TEA PARTY CO-FOUNDER: Well, look. I understand outrage over not getting the verdict you want. If Mo would actually reach back to the legal premise that exists here which is Skittles is not a crime, walking is not a crime, a hoodie is not a crime. Again, this is a terrible tragedy. But the incident that happened happened —

IVORY: No, shooting somebody in their chest.

WEBB: However, let me finish.

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: Let him finish. Let him finish.

WEBB: Because a young black man was just murdered in Chicago for refusing to join a gang.

LEMON: Wait. Hold on. David, David, David, David, David, David, David, David, David.

(CROSSTALK)

IVORY: What kind of a comparison is that?

LEMON: Stop both of you. Mo! Mo! Stop. David, stop. David, do not do that false equivalent. That is not —

WEBB: No, I’m not trying to equivocate. But the outrage —

LEMON: Yes but listen.

WEBB: I’m not comparing —

LEMON: Crime happens all the time, and because a crime happens, it does not mean that you should shift the focus from what happened here. Let’s stick to this particular plan.

WEBB: Okay. On this issue —

LEMON: We’re talking about this case.

IVORY: Thank you.

WEBB: On this issue, then, the system played out. Again, we needed to see due process, not outside agitation. He was tried. The jury was picked. They were selected. They had a jury that made a decision on second-degree manslaughter – on second-degree murder. On the manslaughter charges, they acquitted him. The system worked.

Now, if you don’t like the verdict, I can understand that. But to take it beyond that into the continued hyperbole of it’s race – in the dark, rainy night with a hoodie on walking away from him and with a 911 call to back it up, he couldn’t even identify him clearly. So he wasn’t racially profiling him. This is a tragedy, and a travesty is when you get to the point where race becomes the overwhelming issue rather than the justice system.

BUCK DAVIS, DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION EXPERT: David —

IVORY: The justice system is broken.

LEMON: OK, all right, hold on, guys. You have to let me lead this conversation. So, you have two people of color. I assume you’re both African-American. Excuse me for assuming that.

IVORY: I am. I’m not sure about David.

WEBB: I’m a black man. I’m an American. That’s what it is.

IVORY: Oh, okay. Keep with that.

LEMON: Okay. So – (LAUGHTER) girl, you are crazy. So, you have two people —

Satan’s Little Republican Helper

Journalism, Liberty, Media, Propaganda, Republicans, Terrorism, The State

No wonder Republican Peter King ((R-NY) is gunning for former Salon journalist Glenn Greenwald, who facilitated Edward Snowden’s disclosures to the British Guardian about the NSA. (At the behest of Obama, the NSA has been eavesdropping on half the country with the aid of meta-data sweeps.)

Greenwald had done much to expose King as “one of President Obama’s most outspoken defenders and supporters,” when it comes to the violation of civil liberties (individual rights being the better term).

Via Jake Tapper (who credits his bare-bones report with being an “analysis”):

King told CNN’s Anderson Cooper Tuesday that he thinks the journalist should be prosecuted.
“If they willingly knew this was classified information, I think actions should be taken, especially on something of this magnitude,” said King.
“I think something on this magnitude, there is an obligation, both moral and also legal, I believe, against a reporter disclosing something which would so severely compromise national security,” said King.
In response, Greenwald tweeted, “Is it true, as I was just told, that Peter King on CNN called for criminal prosecution of journalists reporting the NSA stories?”

The real news here is that CNN alpha female Anderson Cooper has assented to covering some news, as opposed to camping at the site of a riot or a shooting or a natural disaster or a baby/dog/cat/horse rescue to solicit sob-stories.

UPDATE II: The Kid Is Alright. Ditto The British Guardian (Which Exposed Indirectly Corrupt US Media)

Ethics, Government, Journalism, Justice, Media, Morality, Ron Paul, Technology, The State

People like Edward Snowden are the very people to whom we should say, “Thank you for your service.” Uncle Sam will destroy Edward Snowden, as it is destroying Julian Assange and Bradley Manning. Snowden knew it, yet he did what he did anyway.

Via The Guardian:

The individual responsible for one of the most significant leaks in US political history is Edward Snowden, a 29-year-old former technical assistant for the CIA and current employee of the defence contractor Booz Allen Hamilton. Snowden has been working at the National Security Agency for the last four years as an employee of various outside contractors, including Booz Allen and Dell.
The Guardian, after several days of interviews, is revealing his identity at his request. From the moment he decided to disclose numerous top-secret documents to the public, he was determined not to opt for the protection of anonymity. “I have no intention of hiding who I am because I know I have done nothing wrong,” he said.

The kid is more than alright. He’s a hero.

UPDATED: Corrupt US Media Usurped. An heroic American whistleblower chooses, oh-so wisely, to expose Uncle Sam’s usurpations to the veteran reporters of the British Guardian, and not to the partisan hacks of the American press: This tells you all you need to know about the state of US press and the entity (the state) to which it has sworn allegiance.

The best of Edward Snowden:

I could be rendered by the CIA. I could have people come after me. Or any of the third-party partners. They work closely with a number of other nations. Or they could pay off the Triads. Any of their agents or assets,” he said.

…”We have got a CIA station just up the road – the consulate here in Hong Kong – and I am sure they are going to be busy for the next week. And that is a concern I will live with for the rest of my life, however long that happens to be.”
Having watched the Obama administration prosecute whistleblowers at a historically unprecedented rate, he fully expects the US government to attempt to use all its weight to punish him. “I am not afraid,” he said calmly, “because this is the choice I’ve made.” …
… he learned just how all-consuming the NSA’s surveillance activities were, claiming “they are intent on making every conversation and every form of behaviour in the world known to them”.
…He described how he once viewed the internet as “the most important invention in all of human history”. As an adolescent, he spent days at a time “speaking to people with all sorts of views that I would never have encountered on my own”. …
…But he believed that the value of the internet, along with basic privacy, is being rapidly destroyed by ubiquitous surveillance. “I don’t see myself as a hero,” he said, “because what I’m doing is self-interested: I don’t want to live in a world where there’s no privacy and therefore no room for intellectual exploration and creativity.”
…Once he reached the conclusion that the NSA’s surveillance net would soon be irrevocable, he said it was just a matter of time before he chose to act. “What they’re doing” poses “an existential threat to democracy”, he said. …
…there still remains the question: why did he do it? Giving up his freedom and a privileged lifestyle? “There are more important things than money. If I were motivated by money, I could have sold these documents to any number of countries and gotten very rich.”
…For him, it is a matter of principle. “The government has granted itself power it is not entitled to. There is no public oversight. The result is people like myself have the latitude to go further than they are allowed to,” he said.

AND:

“Snowden said that he admires both Ellsberg and Manning, but argues that there is one important distinction between himself and the army private, whose trial coincidentally began the week Snowden’s leaks began to make news.
‘I carefully evaluated every single document I disclosed to ensure that each was legitimately in the public interest,’ he said. ‘There are all sorts of documents that would have made a big impact that I didn’t turn over, because harming people isn’t my goal. Transparency is.'”

He purposely chose, he said, to give the documents to journalists whose judgment he trusted about what should be public and what should remain concealed.

“I don’t want to live in a world where there’s no privacy and therefore no room for intellectual exploration and creativity.”

“The primary lesson from this experience was that ‘you can’t wait around for someone else to act. I had been looking for leaders, but I realised that leadership is about being the first to act.'”

UPDATE II: NO SURPRISE THERE; Edward Snowden had donated to libertarian Ron Paul.

UPDATED: Obama’s The Sinner; Holder His ‘Sin Eater’ (Media in Mutiny)

Barack Obama, Bush, Democrats, Journalism, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Media, Republicans

“Obama’s The Sinner; Holder His ‘Sin Eater'” is the current column, now on WND. An excerpt:

“BIG media have been willing, even eager, to pass the buck for Barack for the past five years. But the Fourth Estate rose as one on its proverbial hind legs when the president made the mistake of going after their own: members of the media.

For doing their jobs, Associated Press journalists were spied on and had their telephone records and other personal information seized by the head of Barack Obama’s Justice Department, Attorney General Eric Holder. For doing his job, Fox News Channel’s James Rosen was framed by the same department for the crime of conspiracy to leak classified materials.

IRS bloodhounds Douglas Shulman and Steven Miller, likely in charge of hounding conservative organizations unsympathetic to Obama, had practically taken up residence at the Big Dog’s House. Yet, curiously, conservatives have largely avoided linking Barack Hussein Obama to this and to the other scandals reverberating throughout his administration.

Republicans have eddied around the issue, merely describing the president’s stance with respect to the Rosen, AP, Benghazi and the Internal Revenue Service affairs as “disconnected,” “lacking focus.” An “absentee presidency,” surmised the conservative bloggers at Powrline. “The Spectator President,” pronounced Patrick Buchanan. Judge Andrew Napolitano’s brief was equally narrow. He avoided so much as hinting that Holder had likely been carrying out the wishes of his bosom buddy.

Although it’s hard to know what to make of it here, Republican rigor mortis is par for the course. Fortunately, for every mealymouthed Eric Cantor—the House majority leader is responsible for the “disconnected” description—there are progressives like Salon’s Joan Walsh [and professor Jonathan Turley], who, spittle flying, are tying the president to the infractions liberals consider unforgivable. …”

The complete column is “Obama’s The Sinner; Holder His ‘Sin Eater.'” Read it on WND.

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UPDATE: Let’s be clear, the media schmooze Eric Holder has attempted to hold, only to be rebuffed by most news outlets, originated with our original sinner, Obama. Via HuffPo:

President Obama announced last week that Holder would meet with media executives to discuss guidelines concerning journalists caught up in leak investigations. There has been growing concern among journalists and lawmakers about the DOJ’s tactics following the seizure of Associated Press phone records in one investigation and the accusation in court documents that a Fox News reporter may have committed a crime in the course of reporting in another.

The “meeting this week between Attorney General Eric Holder and the Washington bureau chiefs of several media outlets [was ostensibly] to discuss guidelines for journalists in leak investigations.”

Please. Obama wishes to restore the privileges he enjoyed before the media mutinied. A little access, a wink and a nudge; why doesn’t the magic work any more? He also wants surreptitiously to “set conditions” on how reporting is to be done in The Great leader’s America.

And he wants this meeting (ostensibly) about the freedom of the press to take place off the record!

Following Abramson’s announcement, Democratic National Committee spokesman Brad Woodhouse tweeted that President Obama had asked the attorney general “to review how leak investigations are done but some in the media refuse to meet with him. Kind of forfeits your right gripe.”
Journalists would argue that the issue is not about simply refusing to meet with Holder, but that the government shouldn’t set conditions that would prevent news organizations from reporting on what takes place