Crime

The affinity of some American conservatives for Vladimir Putin was a minor phenomenon well before Donald Trump ran for president, and for obvious reasons it’s still grist for the mill of punditry. Liberal blogger and columnist Waldman delved into the topic in a Monday piece for The American Prospect. Waldman mused that maybe Republicans “are just now realizing that Putin is a leader after their…

On Wednesday's New Day, during a discussion of President Barack Obama issuing a record number of pardons and commutations before leaving office, CNN commentators Errol Louis and David Gregory both spoke up in defending his actions. Louis even repeated the term "mass incarceration," which in recent years has been commonly used on the left when complaining that too many criminals are in prison.

As one would expect, there is plenty to criticize in Stephen Ohlemacher's Monday evening coverage of Donald Trump's achievement of an Electoral College majority earlier in the day. This post will concentrate on Ohlemacher's questionable counting of "protesters." A separate post looks at a very revealing failure in the wire service story's photo collection, in a graphic showing how the…

Tuesday, the press focused on whether Mevlut Mert Altintas, who assassinated Andrei Karlov, Russia's ambassador to Turkey on Monday in Ankara, acted alone or was, in the words of Russia's Vladimir Putin, "directed." There will almost certainly be similar speculation over the driver of the "truck that mowed down the crowd on Monday, killing at least 12 people" in Berlin, Germany, if and when he is…

None of the Big Three networks' Monday evening newscasts, nor ABC and NBC's morning shows on Tuesday, covered how President Obama set a one-day record for pardons and commutations on Monday. ABC's GMA on Tuesday apparently thought Merriam-Webster's 2016 'Word of the Year' more important, as it devoted 45 seconds of air time to that story. The same morning, NBC's Today also didn't cover the…

News travels slowly into the Kansas City metropolitan area — or at least into the newsroom at the Kansas City Star. On Friday, the paper's Dave Helling produced a 950-word writeup on Monday's Electoral College voting. With all of the widely published news about Republican electors receiving death threats, all Helling had to report was a rumor: "One spouse of a Missouri elector claimed to know of…

On Thursday, Newsweek's Lucy Westcott forwarded possible excuses for Yasmin Seweid's fake account about anti-Muslim men attacking her on New York City's subway. Westcott spotlighted an activist who played up that young Muslim women, like Seweid, are "children of either immigrant parents or U.S.-born Muslims, and parents have high expectations of them, putting [them under] tremendous pressure."…

Only a few hours had passed after a South Carolina jury convicted racist mass murderer Dylann Roof on 33 federal charges Thursday, when radical leftist site Slate tried to tie President-Elect Donald Trump to the killer. “Indeed, when read together, Trump’s [presidential campaign] announcement and Roof’s manifesto offer a duet in racial grievance,” proclaimed their Chief Political Correspondent…

While the media are obsessed with debunking “fake news,” they might take a look at the plank in their own eye. On Tuesday, Politifact, the self-appointed purveyor of debunking “fake news,” has named the “phenomenon” of fake news their “Lie of the Year” and bashed Donald Trump for spreading these so-called false stories: “Fake news found a willing enabler in [President-elect Donald Trump], who at…

Though the press apparently wants everyone to forget about it, the fact is that barely two weeks ago, over Thanksgiving weekend, the Obama administration told the world, apparently only through the New York Times, its designated mouthpiece, that "we stand behind our (nation's) election results, which accurately reflect the will of the American people." The statement was "issued" to the Times on…

Sunday afternoon, Eric Shawn of Fox News interviewed former United Nations Ambassador John Bolton. By his reactions to what Bolton said near the interview's beginning, Shawn misunderstood the meaning of "false flag operation," apparently believing that every such effort has to be originated by the government leveling a charge of nefarious behavior against another, in this case the U.S. against…

On Friday's New Day, during a debate between liberal Daily Beast contributor Dean Obeidallah and conservative CNN political commentator Ben Ferguson about whether incoming Donald Trump administration members are anti-Islam, CNN co-anchor Chris Cuomo suggested at one point that many whites, feeling like they have been "victimized" by Islam, supported Trump because they think "now it's our turn" to…

No review of the reactions of leftists and the establishment press (but I repeat myself) to the death of Fidel Castro would be complete without seeing what the wonderful, caring people at Black Lives Matter wrote after the Cuban dictator died. BLM's reaction is posted at a website called Medium.com. Since that post doesn't link elsewhere, it was possible to hope that the content there doesn't…

On Saturday's AM Joy on MSNBC, during a discussion of recent instances of apparent Donald Trump supporters being recorded in public places being rowdy and sometimes saying racist things to strangers, former CNN correspondent Maria Hinojosa complained that the "mainstream media" have caused whites to be afraid of immigrants. And, moments later, guest Tim Wise -- identified as an "anti-racism…