Newsweek breaking news reporter Benjamin Fearnow covered Wednesday's comments by Rush Limbaugh on the criminal justice reform bill that easily passed Congress. Limbaugh claimed the bill steals one of the major issues, prison reform for nonviolent criminals, that Colin Kaepernick and other athletes have been have been demanding through their anthem protests.
Fearnow didn't tell the entire story and downplayed some pertinent facts after the Senate on Wednesday passed the "First Step" bill, 87-12. The bill also had the support of President Donald Trump and his advisers Jared Kushner and first daughter Ivanka Trump.
Fearnow said, "The bill only affects federal prisoners, which make up about 10 percent of the country's overall prison population, and focuses on the reduction of mandatory sentences for non-violent drug offenses." His focus on the insignificant-sounding 10 percent figure hardly tells the whole story, though, and Limbaugh cited the raw numbers as 180,789 people in federal prisons.
"This, by the way, is one of the things that Colin Kaepernick was taking a knee for during the national anthem when he was on the San Francisco 49ers," Limbaugh said. "This is one of the things he was protesting. So now nobody needs to kneel anymore. There don’t need to be any protests because we’ve got prison reform. Trump to the rescue. Trump did it! And these people all protesting Trump, they’re all thinking Trump is the bad guy here, and Trump is the president where this finally happens!"
Liberal media outlets and numerous pro athletes have largely made the issue of prison reform about race and have frequently accused Trump of racism.
Prison reform is also a major reason why the NFL awarded a coalition of social justice warriors, led by the Philadelphia Eagles' Malcolm Jenkins, $89 million for this and other causes. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has also been advocating for prison reform.
Fearnow said Limbaugh "heckled" Reverends Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton for failing to change sentencing guidelines that treated offenses involving crack and powder cocaine equally.
Limbaugh said, "They have been on this crusade for, I don't know how long!" He also zinged high profile Democrats who didn't deliver for their base on this issue:
"The Democrats have done nothing on this but talk about it. They’ve done nothing but demand it. Left-wing radical protesters have done nothing but protest over it. Nobody’s ever done anything about it until Trump came along. I think the Democrats secretly are not all that in favor of this.
"Yet it's the Trump administration where something happens. Evil white people! Donald Trump and Jared and Ivanka.
"There isn’t one politician in this country on the federal level who tried to do anything but stroke their chins about this over the years! Even The One, Barack Hussein O. He didn’t even try to do anything about it seriously. He did not even lift a finger. Hillary Clinton never mentioned it."
Fearnow's story omitted other important facets of the bill that Limbaugh did cover:
"Here’s what this bill is gonna do. Send up to 4,000 prisoners home by increasing the amount of time inmates can cut off of their sentences due to good behavior. Allow more male and female inmates to serve time in house arrest or halfway homes instead of prison cells, with exceptions for high-risk inmates.
“Require that prisoners be placed within 500 miles of family. Outlaw shackling during child birth. ... "
Newsweek ignored Limbaugh's comments that Kushner may have spent up to two years working on this bill. "There hasn’t been one shred of attention paid to this, compared to all of the other issues that cable news orgasms over on a daily basis. This thing has been under the radar and invisible, and look how easy it passed — 87 votes in the Senate."
The U.S. House of Representatives passed the bill Thursday by a vote of 358-36.
Criminal justice reform is one of the NFL Players Coalition's key pillars, but it has not commented on this news yet. The Redskins' defensive back Josh Norman states on the group's website that "Legislation is the key to unlocking the doors to true change and measureable accountability not just in our community, but in the entire country." Well, here's the legislation, passed by a Republican Congress and about to be signed by a Republican president.
