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Posts Tagged ‘Chris Lane’

MSNBC has mastered the art of making unracial things racial

by Mojambo ( 119 Comments › )
Filed under Barack Obama, Crime, Media, Politics, Racism at September 20th, 2013 - 7:12 am

Let’s see, you have race hustler Al Sharpton, Chris “tingles” Matthews, Rachel “Maddog” Maddow,  Toure, the incredibly nasty Martin Bashir, and rageaholic Lawrence O’Donnell – all of whom are either demagogues, wannabes, alcoholics and malignant narcissists who condescend to every “person of color” (God I hate that term) because at heart they are cowards.

by Jonah Goldberg

Why do they seem so determined to also make it racial?”

So asks Joy-Ann Reid, the managing editor of TheGrio, a web magazine owned by NBC News whose mission is to “focus on news and events that have a unique interest and/or pronounced impact within the national African Americans audience.” The “they” in question are conservatives and journalists asking, among other things, why President Obama hasn’t inserted himself into a new criminal-justice case the way he did in the Trayvon Martin tragedy.

The irony-impaired Reid was asking that question about a heinous murder in Oklahoma, where, according to police, an Australian student was shot by a black youth with the help of two friends (one of whom was white) “for the fun of it.” Police allege that the bored teens spotted Christopher Lane jogging and decided to follow him and shoot him in the back.

Reid asked the question while guest-hosting a show on MSNBC, a network that has mastered the art of making unracial things racial. Just two days earlier, Reid had insisted that there’s a “neoconfederate thread” running through the gun-rights movement. Whatever that means.

Then there’s MSNBC fixture Chris Matthews, who insists, with considerable regularity, that any criticism of Barack Obama is driven by “white supremacy.” Critics of Obamacare, Matthews claims, believe that “the white race must rule.”

Another MSNBC host, Martin Bashir, recently insisted that outrage over the ongoing scandal at the IRS is really nothing more than coded racism. The IRS is the new “N-word,” according to Bashir. “So this afternoon, we welcomed the latest phrase in the lexicon of Republican attacks on this president: the IRS. [………………]”

Lawrence O’Donnell, another MSNBC host, assured viewers during the Republican National Convention last summer that Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell’s joke about Obama’s playing too much golf was really a deliberate racist dog whistle. “These people,” O’Donnell insisted, “reach for every single possible racial double entendre they can find in every one of these speeches.”

And that of course leaves out Al Sharpton, an MSNBC host who can best be understood as the racial equivalent of an ambulance chaser.

Against this backdrop, Reid’s asking why anyone would bring race into the discussion is a bit like a pornographer asking, “Why make this about sex?”

But let’s get back to her question. One high-minded response might be that conservatives are bringing race into this discussion because they are simply doing what has been asked of them by Reid and countless others, including the president and the attorney general: They’re trying to have that coveted “national conversation about race.” Of course, the conversation that the conversation-mongers want is entirely one-sided; they only want to talk about why their ideological enemies are racists.  [……….]

But the truth is, that’s not what is going on. To the extent that people are bringing up race it is to turn the tables, rhetorically at least, on people like Reid and her MSNBC colleagues for their relentless — some might say shameless and disgusting — effort to exploit the George Zimmerman murder trial.

Recall that there was no evidence Zimmerman was motivated by racial animus, a fact so inconvenient to NBC News that it unethically edited Zimmerman’s 911 call to make it sound like he was racist. (NBC later apologized and Zimmerman is rightly suing.) This inconvenient truth was also why numerous news outlets insisted on describing Zimmerman as a “white Hispanic” — to bend the facts to fit the preferred narrative.

Australian and British newspapers — which do not care about imposing a monolithic liberal narrative on race — are reporting that Lane’s alleged murderers may have been driven by motives other than boredom. But even if the initial reporting proves accurate and these thugs were just trying to break the monotony of the dog days of summer, the lesson for the MSNBC crowd should be the same.

From Obama down to his cheerleaders in the press, liberals have declared unremitting war on their ideological opponents, cynically polarizing the country along racial — and, when possible, gender — lines. They, not conservatives, have been the ones dragging race into any and every political dispute they can. This disgusting strategy has worked well for them, galvanizing minority voters and tarring the Republican brand. I don’t particularly welcome the fact that conservatives are fighting fire with fire, but you can hardly blame them given how liberals like Reid have been asking for it for so long.

Read the rest –  The ‘Race Conversation’ Network

If Obama had a son would he look like Chris Lane?

by Mojambo ( 88 Comments › )
Filed under Crime at August 21st, 2013 - 7:00 pm

I guess we all know the answer, Obama will remain silent as will Eric Holder and Hilary Clinton. MSNBC, Nancy Grace, Mike Lupica, Al Sharpton, Jamie Foxx etc. will not say a word about this either. What makes this so horrifying is the randomness of it all.

hat tip – Powerline

by Hilary Whiteman

REUTERS

‘THRILL-KILLERS’: James Francis Edwards Jr., 15, Chancey Allen Luna, 16, and Michael Dewayne Jones, 17, are seen in booking photos after their arrest in the senseless murder or an Australian college baseball player in Oklahoma.

(CNN) — They were younger than him, just teenagers who were driving around, apparently bored and looking for somebody to kill, according to police in Duncan, Oklahoma.

The indiscriminate shooting of Christopher Lane, a 23-year-old Australian who was living his dream of studying in the U.S. on a baseball scholarship, has repulsed many in his home country and led to calls for Australian tourists to boycott the United States.

“It is another example of murder mayhem on Main Street,” former Australian deputy Prime Minister Tim Fischer told CNN’s Piers Morgan.

[…….]
 

Police: He was killed for the fun of it

Police say Lane was on one of his regular runs through what’s been described as the affluent town of Duncan on Friday at about 3 p.m. local time when a car carrying three teenagers drove up behind him.

“They pulled up behind him and shot him in the back then sped away,” said Capt. Jay Evans of Duncan Police Department. “It could have been anybody — it was such a random act.”

It was the indiscriminate nature of the attack that has shocked many in Australia.

One local newspaper, under mug shots of the three suspects, aged 15, 16 and 17, ran the headline: “Faces of Evil: The teens American police say shot our star.”

[……..]

Lane grew up in Oak Park, a northern suburb of Melbourne in the southern state of Victoria. He showed sporting talent early on and started playing tee ball, the little league version of baseball, at the age of 7, according to Essendon Baseball Club president Tony Cornish.

“It’s shocked our world. The baseball community in Australia is a tight-knit group. Most baseballers know most baseballers and everyone’s shattered,” Cornish told CNN.

Cornish said Lane was a “very good athlete” who could have played Australian Rules football but chose baseball because it offered him the chance of a college education in America.

“If it didn’t work out he could have come back to Australia with an education and also been a much better baseballer. He would have been an elite player in Australia and at our club. That’s the type of kid he is — he created a ‘win- win,’ in a way, for himself,” he said.

Lane’s friends and family are being invited to a memorial game in his honor on Sunday, and a donation page has been set up on its website to raise money for a memorial fund in his name.

Lane’s girlfriend of four years, Sarah Harper, visited the scene of his death on Tuesday, a grassy curb on a suburban street where flowers have been placed with messages of regret and condolence.

“(He was) such an amazing person and I’m going to miss him forever. But I’m really glad that I got the four years with him,” Harper told reporters. She and her family will be traveling to Melbourne for Lane’s funeral on a date still to be set.

Lane’s visibly distraught father, Peter, told the media: “He’s left his mark as we know, and you know there’s not going to be any good come out of this, because it was just so senseless.”

It’s shocked our world. The baseball community in Australia is a tight-knit group… everyone’s shattered.
Tony Cornish, Essendon Baseball Club

A former student and classmate at East Central University (ECU) where Lane was studying described him as “a charming guy, genuinely good person, with great character and had a love for life.”

“As clichéd as it sounds, Chris was the kind of guy you want your sons to grow up to be and that you want your daughters to marry. It just breaks my heart knowing how much more he could have brought to this world as a husband, father, son, brother and friend,” Sam Malchar said.

On Tuesday, three teenagers appeared in court charged over the attack, which came one day before they were due to return to school.

James Edwards Jr., 15, and Chancey Luna, 16, were charged as adults with felony murder in the first degree, according to Kaylee Chandler, Stephens County Court clerk.

Michael Jones, 17, faces two charges — use of a vehicle in the discharge of a weapon and accessory after the fact to murder in the first degree.

A judge set bond at $1 million for Jones, while no bond was set for Edwards and Luna, Chandler said.

Security is being tightened around the Duncan School District after anonymous phone threats were made to Duncan High School.

Schools will open as normal on Wednesday, but students won’t be allowed to leave for lunch and parents are being told they can keep their children at home if they wish, according to a statement from school district officials.

Read the rest – ‘Senseless’ shooting of Australian Chris Lane sparks calls for U.S. boycott