Crime

In his "Talking Points" opening monologue Wednesday night, Fox News's Bill O'Reilly lit into the establishment press for allowing the notion that America is a "white supremacist nation" to go "largely unchallenged." He further accused the press of allowing itself to be "intimidated," leaving Fox as the only channel, in his view, "standing up for the truth." I have been told that O'Reilly's…

Vox's David Roberts, who describes himself at his "drvox" Twitter page as a "Seattleite transplanted from Tennessee," clearly does not have a lot of love for his region of origin. Tuesday afternoon, in the wake of Dylann Roof's racially motivated massacre in Charleston, South Carolina, Roberts tweeted his belief that "The American South has always been the most barbaric, backward region in any…

It was just a fleeting remark, but quite a telling one. Closing out a segment on his June 23 Hardball program, MSNBC anchor Chris Matthews made reference to Charleston church shooter Dylann Roof in a way which diminished the racist terrorist's responsibility for his actions.

Racial issues, not gun issues, understandably have been at the forefront of most media coverage of the Charleston massacre, but Adam Gopnik suggests that in any such mass shooting, the firearm is the salient factor. “Mental health, the enduring structures of racism—these are issues that we have to deal with, too,” wrote Gopnik in a Tuesday column. “But they are not at the heart of the tragedy.…

In a Tuesday piece for Salon, Stanford comparative-literature professor David Palumbo-Liu alleged that Fox News “surely planned to furnish [accused Charleston mass-murderer Dylann] Roof with an alibi regarding the exact nature of his heinous crime,” and declared that “if Roof is convicted I suggest we regard Fox as an accessory after the fact.” Palumbo-Liu also claimed that Fox News “provides a…

The left's "screw up, move up" principle for career advancement appears to be at play again. Of course, the press is playing up the move-up, and ignoring the screw-ups. Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, whose statements and strategies inarguably led to more property destruction and civil disorder than would have occurred if someone more responsible had been in charge during that city's…

The New York Times wasted no time politicizing the massacre by white supremacist Dylann Roof at a black church in Charleston, S.C. Already writers for the paper have soared beyond the tragic facts of the case to sharpen the issue into a political weapon, indicting Republican attempts to protect voting integrity through voter ID, even comparing opposition to an Obama-care proposal to slavery.

Friday's The Situation Room on CNN ran a report by correspondent Tom Foreman fretting over the Confederate flag's presence in a part of the South Carolina capitol grounds that is reserved as a tribute to the state's history. Even though the report acknowledged that the flag is padlocked into place so that it cannot be flown at half staff in times of tragedy, Foreman still worried over the fact…

On Friday's New Day, during a discussion of why violence by Muslims is more likely to be labeled as "terrorism" in contrast with racially motivated violence like the Charleston church massacre, CNN co-anchor Chris Cuomo at one point claimed that "bigotry" in part makes people more likely to attach the word "terrorism" to violence by Muslims. After guest and University of North Carolina Professor…

Anger, sadness, and disgust have been nearly universal responses to Wednesday night’s apparent act of racist terrorism in Charleston, S.C., but Jeb Lund doesn’t think such reactions make sense coming from conservatives. In a Friday screed, Lund argued that the Charleston shootings shouldn’t have surprised anyone, given that “American movement conservatism has already made these kinds of killings…

While emphasizing that it's (supposedly) only a partial list, it appears that the Associated Press felt compelled today to try to claim that there's a long and recent history of murderous racist attacks on black churches (or predominantly black churches) in the U.S. Somehow, the wire service forgot that a genuine trend needs to continue uninterrupted or at least have some consistency before it…

Seeking to make sense of what motivated Dylann Roof to shoot innocent worshipers at a historic black church in Charleston, S.C., to death, MSNBC contributor Eugene Robinson and MSNBC Hardball host Chris Matthews agreed that there was some mystical role that the "atmosphere" of hate in the Palmetto State played. For his part, Matthews likened it to JFK's assassination in November 1963, insisting…

A new Gallup survey has revealed that Americans have approximately twice as much confidence in law enforcement personnel -- 52 percent -- as they do in newspapers -- 24 percent -- and television news -- 21 percent. The telephone poll was conducted June 2-7 and included Gallup's newest survey on confidence in U.S. institutions, which it has updated every year since 1993.