When bad journalists do bad things, absolutely nothing happens to them

We already knew CNBC's John Harwood was of meager character, so this latest substantiating evidence cannot shock. 

Wikileaks just released email communications between notorious liberal Harwood and Hillary campaign chair John Podesta, whose own innate scurrilousness is manifest and rivals that of fellow hoofed and fat-walleted die-hard donkey James Carville. 

The back-slapping exchanges, dating from the primary season, are of notably unseemly, fraternal mien.

On January 28, Breitbart reports, Harwood sent Podesta a Hillary-centered mash note. "She was good here in Newton."

Privately dispatched compliments about a candidate? Quite the objective reporter, this Harwood.

In March, after Clinton had won all five primaries held on the 15th, Harwood was unable to restrain himself, gushing to Podesta, "Congrats -- pretty strong." 

In return, Podesta tossed the CNBC personality a Scooby snack: "Yup. Feeling good."

John Harwood, of course, attracted considerable negative notice when he basically came out as an unblushing anti-Trump activist during the GOP primary debate he moderated in October of last year.

"Let's be honest," Harwood challenged Trump, perhaps reading a line suggested by his Hillary comrades. "Is this the comic book version of a presidential campaign?"

His 'looka me, looka me' rhetorical handspringing earned for him the ignominious Bernard Shaw crown.

(Joe Concha, then with Mediaite, noted acidically, "Needless to say, no objective person will take Harwood seriously about anything for a very long time.")

Harwood will, of course, suffer zero professional sanction for this latest exposed malpractice. CNBC heads may in fact throw him a party.

Here's why: The shifty John would never have reached the lofty media limb he currently claws had news executives at any point given one single damn about ethics. In the news media's general bias-cesspool, deceitful wretches like Harwood are allowed unhindered splash play. 



end

They molest, too, who type and twist
WaPo's Dan Balz, Philip Rucker, and Robert Costa do dirt

So many are the fine illustrations of election-season mainstream media malpractice that another was hardly required. And yet, opening this day's paper, here we are.

Washington Post writers Dan Balz, Philip Rucker, and Robert Costa blended yellow journalism with purple prose to produce this latest one. "Trump wanted to put Bill Clinton's accusers in his family box. Officials said no," their 10/10 Post offering, was so slanted toward the political state as to earn the three behind-ear scratches.

The detestable sex offenses of which Bill Clinton has for decades been accused are raised only fleetingly before being hidden away again. Readers are not apprised that the disgraced ex-president paid some $850,000 to one woman, Paula Jones. 

Jones spoke at a pre-debate, survivors of Bill press conference. And
she spent the debate itself sitting in the front row, not far from Hillary. The lapdogs of the establishment press gnashed and wailed.

Kathy Shelton also was in Trump's company that night. She had been raped at age 12, in 1975. Then-attorney Hillary smeared her in court and later laughed of her client/Shelton's rapist beating the polygraph: 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2f13f2awK4

Balz, Rucker, and Costa breezily bypassed Shelton's heartbreaking story. Instead, releasing a mere 34 words with an eye dropper, they exonerate Hillary of any hinted moral wrong: "Hillary Clinton was selected by a judge to defend the man [whom they do not name], who eventually pleaded to a lesser charge."

No need, they apparently reasoned, to mention Hillary's subsequent laughter.

Contrast the scant attention they paid to Shelton and to Bill's alleged sex assault victims with their generally melodramatic renderings regarding Trump:

"Donald Trump's campaign sought to intimidate Hillary Clinton and embarrass her husband..."

"The [Trump] campaign's plan...was thwarted just minutes before it could be executed..."

"Frank J. Fahrenkopf, the debate commission co-chairman...caught wind of the plot..."

"...he knew the [Trump] campaign had backed down."

Remember, ideologically reflective observations and phrase-turnings are perfectly acceptable in opinion essays (such as the one you're now appreciating). But it is quite different and unethical to allow biases to corrode ostensibly objective "straight news" reporting.

I once heard Professor Michael Parenti note the most foolish claim he had ever heard from a journalist was, "Nobody tells me what to write! I write what I like!"

"Of course, they let you write what you like," answered Parenti. "Because they like what you write."

He explained that only reporters whose work demonstrated respect for the prejudices of power and who could be trusted to never seriously challenge them were accorded professional livelihoods.

Dan Balz, Philip Rucker, and Robert Costa seem entirely comfortable with their leashed pretense at honest journalism, And they surely will not cause their keepers even a moment's dismay.


end

'This ain't Havana!'

You may have heard numerous media types describe the just-past, third Trump-Clinton debate as befitting a "banana republic." 

Let's see where they got that designedly dismissive phrase. (One which would surely be roundly assailed as "racist" had it been uttered by a conservative. Remember, though, these are the 'Do-as-we-say, not-as-we-do' zealots.)

In the minutes following the candidate exchange, Hillary Clinton's press secretary Brian Fallon issued the "banana republic" descriptor. And, like a retained, on-call emergency response team, the news media snapped into echoey action.

CNN's Dana Bash, NBC's Norah O'Donnell, CBS's Bob Schieffer, and a host of similarly suspect on-mic or in-print sorts repeated the Clinton/Fallon "banana republic" slur.

Group-think is hardly surprising from that pack, whose members indicate having no unique thoughts.

Donald Trump had convened a pre-debate press conference with Kathy Shelton, Juanita Broaddrick, Paula Jones, and Kathleen Willey. And the kept press balled its fists, stamped its feet, and kvetched its collective ass off.

As a 12 year-old Arkansas girl, Shelton had been savagely raped by 41 year-old deviant sub-human Thomas Alfred Taylor. Taylor's sick cause had in 1975 been championed by then-attorney Hillary Clinton. Five years on, she laughed to an interviewer about Taylor's successful lying during a polygraph test.

(Hillary laughs at recollection:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tor00iWUhDQ)

The other three women had survived various awkward torments by loathsome Arkansas Creeper, Bill Clinton. Hillary notoriously engineered 'search and destroy' efforts against the victimized women whose stories could threaten the rise to influence and wealth of the criminal Clinton dynasty.

Trump seated the four victims in the debate's front row and vowed during the debate to have Hillary Clinton properly investigated and imprisoned for financial improprieties and malfeasance while secretary of state.

Trump's evoking of "imprisonment" inspired many-a media promoter of the Hillary campaign to sob of "banana republic" tactics. As if a politician's advocacy of justice's thorough and equal pursuit, including against the politically powerful, were somehow base and condemnable. 

During that debate, though the victims' presence was pointed out to her, Hillary did not address the topic, let alone extend deserved apologies. That easy callousness when political ambition dictates illustrates the degree to which she is decidedly not a sincere "advocate for girls and women." (Not without a darkly ironic sense of humor, though, she did later sniff that Trump "never apologizes.")

Again, Trump's audacity at telling unflattering truths about a royal Clinton sent play-ball media figures into stilted, howling fury. And we all should consider that their instinctive sympathy lay not with the wronged public, but the challenged powerful. 

(During Trump's pre-debate press conference, one reporter carrying Clinton's water attempted injury. He asked the businessman whether he thought prestige granted license to grope. "Why don't you go ask Bill Clinton that?" demanded Paula Jones. "Why don't you ask Hillary, as well?" Foiled in his dark bid, the reporter said nothing in response -- though he may well have later vented furiously of "banana republic.")  

No, hallmarks of what are termed "banana republics" are not to be found in the Trump campaign. But evidence can easily be turned up on the Clinton/news media side,

Not uncommonly, millions of assistance dollars meant for needful populaces often never make it past corrupt governmental/criminal cabals. See "Clinton Foundation, Haiti," to learn exactly how foul-charactered, icily indifferent to widespread human suffering, and dollar-grasping the Clintons are. And do not be surprised when you vomit.

During Hillary's secretary of state stint, and continuing after she had left government service, the Clintons profited outlandishly. They peddled access and influence to foreign lands with US-related interests. Slimy business, true. But these are slimy people, these Clintons. 

And certainly, the FBI's winked indulgence of Clinton wrongdoing, and the shadowy, airstrip rendezvous between Bill and Attorney General Loretta Lynch, exemplify further the ethical rot that is today so ingrained in the US government.

Consider, too, the phenomenon of a lavishly moneyed mainstream media machine that, rather than speaking truth to power, speaks instead in ornate and deferentially respectful manners of the powerful -- whose interests are rarely confluent with the public's own.

The press's feigned outrage at Trump's assembling victims of sexual pervert Bill Clinton merits observation. 

The sickening notion that Bill's rapes, flashings, and foul-intentioned prowlings were legitimate perks of his ascended elitism, ones never to be prosecuted or even spoken of, is only a variation on the 'too big to fail' proposition that offers shield to Hillary's deep-pocket Wall Street patrons.. 

The professional press serves as the status quo's public relations component. It assures daily that All Is OK, and that elite dynasties like the Kennedys, Bushes, and Clintons are beyond legal reach (or public question).

Independent challengers to the dominant class, like Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders, or Ralph Nader, may rally popular sympathies among the people, but they are threats to the dominant class and must be 'disappeared' from the landscape. With devout news media countenance, of course. 

Now, that's a "banana republic" operation.


end

    

Yesterday's rascal

"Why do you like working in a newsroom?"

"The well-informed and thoughtfully reasoned vulgarity." - Jason Noble

The Des Moines Register writer submitted that response for a 4/24/2015 'Meet the Register's Jason Noble' bit that ran in that paper.

Considering his attention to the now-rolling Shocked-by-Trump -
Tape bandwagon, Noble's past-boasted appreciation of "vulgarity" is of interest.

(By the way, I don't find anyone's vulgarity shocking, and I refuse to pretend otherwise. Quoting the late Christopher Hitchens: "No one enjoys a good bit of filth more than the present author.")

Conscience calls in vain
Mainstream news media and viewers share fault

It is important to remember that they are deaf to conscience.

I'm referring first to those journalists and news media companies that have throughout this election season sadistically sliced away at Donald Trump with their every accessible torture-tool, while championing the crafty and duplicitous Hillary Clinton as a salvational, pantsuited goddess. 

The list includes individuals Wolf Blitzer (CNN), Nicholas Kristof (New York Times), Ruth Marcus (Washington Post), John Harwood (CNBC), and Kristen Welker (MSNBC). 

Also appearing are entire media operations that have effectively acted as DNC propaganda arms. Here, one finds not just orthodox examples like NBC and the LA Times, but such online straight news sites as Politico and The Hill. 

(An aside: News media's daily practical assisting of the Clinton campaign is of a part with a general unity observable among the pyramid-topping powerful. See also the social bond between the moneyed Clinton and Bush family dynasties, and such partners in Washington's do-nothing status quo as Paul Ryan and Harry Reid. 

The political, economic, and media elites are swinging from chandeliers at a party to which we average Americans are not welcome.) 

I used to wonder how, after American voters had elected Trump, the enthusiastically partisan inky assassins would explain themselves to viewers. How could they assure them of post-balloting trustworthiness? 

But eventually, I had an epiphany.

There will be no apologizing. No going back. A great separation has occurred, one sure to endure as the standard journalism industry model long after 2016 campaign ads have ceased.

The era of generally ambitioned, theoretically objective news reporting has passed. (To whatever degree it ever truly existed.)

In its place, now and on into years foreseeable, is an informationally self-segregated age in which every outlet is a specialty one and caters pointedly to peculiar interests.

Mainstream media mouths that have so openly spat on quaint ideals of professional ethics and marched unveiled down Main Street in Hillary's unsightly, ugly-hearted parade will in future years suffer no losses. 

They and corporate news executives know that viewers already at their table each morning prefer, not faithful accountings of events, but ones misrepresentingly prepared to partisan palate. And their cultivated and coddled prejudices aren't going anywhere. 

To them, just as to the deceitful scribes and chatterers whose malpractice they so heartily sanction, conscience calls in vain. 


end

Duplicitous hand-wringers damage actual victims

Much present-day liberal propagandizing depends for foundation on the upside-down notion that words are of greater import than actions.

The latest illustration of this is Democrats' loud scenery-chewing over crude, sexuality-centered 'locker room' Trump talk preserved on just-released audio-tape.  

His words were indelicate, yes. But not of a type unfamiliar or inappropriate to such privately convened bull sessions. And still, only words.

Now, contrast them with these contemptible actions:

In 1975, then-attorney Hillary Clinton championed the loathsome cause of Arkansas child-rapist Thomas Alfred Taylor. Through dogged courtroom maneuverings, Hillary won for the predatory deviant a reduced sentence.

Five years later, she was no longer bound by lawyerly commitment to the wretched Taylor and could freely articulate any personal distaste she might have felt for that case. But she did not. 

In fact, when interviewed by Arkansas reporter Roy Reed for a (never published) Esquire piece, Clinton laughingly recalled child-rapist Taylor's fooling a polygraph and deceitfully maintaining his
innocence. (The damning audio can be found here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2f13f2awK4)

Over following decades, husband Bill left the Arkansas-to-Pennsylvania-Avenue landscape strewn with sundry creepy 
sexual misdoings and outright predations. 

But, rather than advocate for his injured molestation casualties, Hillary notoriously pursued against them a hateful 'search and destroy' strategy, one that included retaining numerous, expensive private investigators.

(It is massively unfortunate that so many American families have been savaged by sexual predators like Thomas Alfred Taylor and Bill Clinton. Hillary Clinton's true sympathies, clearly, are not with such victims.)

A complete listing of so terrorized Bill/Hillary sexual victims (some established, others only alleged) would be quite lengthy. Here are only a few names: 

Juanita Broaddrick
Kathleen Willey
Gennifer Flowers
Monica Lewinsky
Paula Jones
Dolly Kyle
  
It should go without saying that accused persons are considered innocent until guilt has been found. But sincerely concerned observers would doubtless press for thorough investigation of all such abuse allegations, and take care that electoral decisions be appropriately informed.   

To my knowledge, there have been no noisy, liberal feminist parades for these women. Nor will there likely be logical and principled consideration of their stories by Hillary Clinton's litter-bearers.

Because to them, it is only spicy words and not sickening actions that merit opprobrium.

(And I need not reach for an arresting descriptor when the pedestrian "phonies" serves so handily.) 


end

Mainstream media pushes self down staircase

Only 6% of Americans today trust news media, according to an study released last August by the Media Insight Project. Partners in the MIP include the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and the American Press Institute.

One can easily imagine the newsroom flailings that totally unsurprising finding surely inspired.

"I don't understand," a bespectacled bylined sort fussed. "We sculpt stories with liberal bias, champion every oddball perspective to crawl off campuses, and are indefatigable in our slurring of the United States of America's history, cultural identity, military, law enforcement, and traditions. 

"And no one surpasses our contempt for those irredeemable deplorables who cling to God and guns. They lack our superior, formal education backgrounds. We are clearly of higher humanity, a fact of which we remind our audience regularly.

"So, why don't people like us? Why are newspaper sales plummeting? Why are cable news ratings vanishing into Sarte's Nothingness?" 

Respect for the press has throughout our country's history been a given. The concept of independent and plucky printing press Davids, compelled by sincerely embraced public interest passions, challenging political and economic Goliaths is indeed a noble one. 

Many are the accounts of investigative reporters and gutsy editors ripping away pretenses of propriety, speaking truth to power, and advocating for the legitimate interests of rank and file citizens who
lack meaningful access to influence,

When reporters face off against officials at news conferences, they are, ideally, us -- asking difficult and probing questions whose full, honest answers we who would chart the course of democracy must have.

To whatever extent that cherished and laudable ideal might once have been reality, though, it has in recent decades been quite strangled and put down. 

Gone now is the romantic notion of a scrappy, dogged, and invariably principled reporter barging into the dark-windowed planning lairs of unscrupulous banking barons and shifty office holders.

In 2016 place of that, we have sniffing, espresso-sipping liberals not long off the campus -- or, at least, with its wooly-headed, dream-utopia foolishness still knocking about in their otherwise barren skulls -- wagging mock-professorial fingers and weaving trendy inanities. 

It is a news media that daily ridicules the American people with its disdainful airs and repulsive slanders. And seemingly undergirding its awkwardly contrived presentations is a bundle of pompous philosophical whims: 

1) Theirs is the superior aspect, regardless of millions of dumb, working and tax-paying citizens across the country not being able to grasp it. All contrary opinions are wrong, and wrong has no right; certainly, not to equal and faithful visibility. 

2) That it is an entirely proper function of the news media to select for publicizing only those happenings and viewpoints conducive to advancing their harbored sensibilities.

3) Logically proceeding from the above-enumerated elitist prejudices is coverage-coloring contempt for genuinely open democratic processes that make possible the input of all citizens, not only those inhabiting journalists' snow-globish social, political, and formal education worlds.

At last count, I believe, the lion's share of news media outlets are the kept propaganda sirens of a mere 6 mega-corporations. And they are of a part with entrenched status quo political and economic powers indifferent to real people. (Critics point up the revolving door maintained between these divisions, through which scheming system players pass to and fro without check.)

It is understandable, then, that so many Americans applaud the looming passing of an industry largely hostile to them.

"Isn't there some way to force people to buy newspapers and watch TV news?" The fuming reporter was unmindful of hammering sounds rising from the avenue.

"Hold it!" An affluent editor went to the window. "Shit! They're building guillotines!"



end

Why would anyone think the system is rigged?
A few reasons present themselves


After cataloging solid instances of Hillary Clinton's classified email/private server offenses, FBI Director James Comey effectively took a dive by refusing to pursue prosecution.

But why would anyone think the system is rigged?


Now making news is an FBI side-deal to destroy the computers of Clinton State Department personnel suspected of mishandling classified emails, personnel to whom the agency gave criminal immunity.

But why would anyone think the system is rigged?


The Obama Department of Justice, under Loretta Lynch, not only failed to encourage prosecution of Clinton, but seemed to many to discourage productive legal investigation. The revelation that a hushed rendezvous/possible strategizing session took place between Lynch and Bill Clinton, oddly convened privately on a landed jet guarded by Secret Service agents who warned reporters against photographing the event, only hardened poured concrete.

But why would anyone think the system is rigged?


On Tuesday, US District Court Judge Reggie Walton refused to make public drafts of the 1990s Whitewater indictment of Hillary Clinton, asserting that her "substantial privacy interest" outweighed the public's right to know.

But why would anyone think the system is rigged?


Politico, on 10/4, headlined a report "Obama DOJ drops charges against alleged broker of Libyan weapons: Arms dealer had threatened to expose Hillary Clinton's talks about arming anti-Qadhafi rebels." 


But why would anyone think the system is rigged?


Wall Sreet financial organs tout Hillary and caution loudly that a Trump presidency would bring economic ruin. Of course, business abhors change, which Trump advocates. And Wall Street is entirely comfortable with a status quo that indulges it at the expense of regular Americans. Besides, Hillary has for decades cultivated a skin-tight alliance with big-dollar enterprises, having received from them lavish fees for closed-door speeches whose texts she refuses to make public.

But why would anyone think the system is rigged? 



Following the first presidential debate, Trump complained of a faulty mic. Critics including Hillary, Mark Cuban, various cable news channel hosts, and Saturday Night Live actors all mocked Trump's concern. The technical issue was subsequently confirmed by the debate's sponsor, but no one apologized and the false, partisan-prompted ridicule continued.

But why would anyone think the system is rigged?


Among critical information exposed by Wikileaks were DNC inside communications detailing its shoulder-to-shoulder efforts with the Clinton campaign to sabotage Bernie Sanders' candidacy, including consideration of attacks on Sanders' Jewish faith.

But why would anyone think the system is rigged?


Hillary-promoting media voices frequently banner her 'advocate for women and girls' slogan. That cheerleading is undertaken though the Clinton Foundation -- of which Obama administration Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was obviously a part -- pocketed millions of donation dollars from countries like Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Qatar. Those nations' laws and customs allow the routine repression, "honor killing," and sexual abuse of women. 

But why would anyone think the system is rigged?


Lastly, just as the elite system includes governmental and economic divisions, it also retains a mass media division:

(from AgainstCronyCapitalism.org)

But why would anyone think the system is rigged?

CNN's Brian Stelter joins in WaPo ridicule of mentally ill. 
Because politics.

Washington Post writer Stephanie McCrummen recently ridiculed a mentally ill woman who supports the candidacy of Donald Trump. The writer's unveiled implication was that all Trump backers are similarly worthy of nose-wrinkled sport.

McCrummen's vile ridicule was not merely incidental to her article, but was instead its raison d'etre.

In a recent essay, here, I held that Washington Post piece up to deservedly negative critical observation.(http://americanscenemagazine.blogspot.com/2016/10/no-conscience-cruelty-wapos-stephanie.html) But, as I've just now learned, tongue-protruding bigot McCrummen has at least one odd endorser.

In a 10/4 tweet, CNN's Brian Stelter gushed admiringly of McCrummen's dirty business:

Brian Stelter ‏@brianstelter  1h

1 hour ago

This is why @mccrummenWaPo's recent story is one of the most important stories of '16 http://wpo.st/mHw12  Virtual lies hurt real people.

My own blog essay appraisal of Stephanie McCrummen's foulness had been appropriately acidic: 

"McCrummen doesn't explicitly say 'basket of deplorables.'" I wrote, "But such maggoty, segregationist prejudice marks her disdainful prose at each turn.

"Throughout her toxically dispositioned article, McCrummen ladles generously the mental illness slurring. [Article subject Melanie] Austin, the writer stage-whispers in shocked tone to her readers, relies upon anxiety medication, has been diagnosed with depression and PTSD, and was once involuntarily hospitalized."

To regular viewers of cable news, Stelter's soggy liberal prejudices are notorious. Indeed, so pronounced are they as to compromise his attempted media analyses and earn him the opprobrium of fair-minded industry peers.

So, while I've long understood CNN's Brian Stelter to be of dubious ethicalness, this is the first I've learned that he enjoys a good belly-laugh at the expense of the mentally ill.

BOOK: media/pro-violence

So familiar a reality, this needs no extended observation by me. An entire media untruth brigade has for over a year marched in madness to falsely label Trump and his supporters as violent. Usual suspects like CNN and the Washington Post galumphed eagerly into calculatedly counterfeit, propagandistic industry.

There was even an outright endorsement of physical attacks against Trump's supporters. In June, the Huffington Post's Jesse Benn penned a tortuously "rationalized," overly lengthy exhortation to animalistic payback for partisan rivals. ("Sorry liberals, a violent response to Trump is as logical as any"

Organized bodily assaults championed as legitimate political means? Third world, here we come.

Never broached by mainstream commentators loyally mouthing Democrat talking points is one inconveniently real-world, contrary fact. American streets are increasingly swelled with beasts of little brain who hail wrong as right, destroy all property they encounter, chant hopefully for police officers' deaths, and jubilantly film with ever-present cell phones their ugly, gang brutalizations of ideological others.

And no, these raggedy and lack-witted, homicidal cretins do not back the Trump candidacy, mainstream media's make-believe portrayals of our nation notwithstanding. 

Publicly perpetrated crimes by these bafflegabbing drains on superior society run the gamut from mass-processionary murder-chanting to dogpile maulings to juvenile, nyah-nyah vandalism.

Here are but a few recent examples:  

9/28 - Breitbart: Mob chases, attacks man wearing Trump hat.
http://www.breitbart.com/california/2016/09/29/black-lives-matter-mob-chases-beats-white-man-wearing-maga-hat/ (VIDEO)


9/29 - InfoWars: College women attacked for Trump hat on campus.
http://www.infowars.com/female-student-attacked-for-wearing-trump-hat-on-campus/



10/2 - American Mirror
Hispanic men beat white woman over Trump yard sign, post video. 
http://www.theamericanmirror.com/video-california-woman-beaten-trump-yard-sign/

10/2 - Gateway Pundit: Thug vandalizes Trump Int'l, in D.C.
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2016/10/clinton-supporters-vandalize-trump-international-hotel-washington-dc/ (VIDEO)


9/29 - Hannity.com: Man attempts to steal Trump yard sign, is electrically shocked.
http://www.hannity.com/articles/election-493995/watch-man-gets-electric-shock-when-15155458/

No-conscience cruelty
WaPo's Stephanie McCrummen kicks disabled, cashes check

In a single despicable article ("Finally. Someone who thinks like me," was its designedly 'othering,' smear-by-association title), Washington Post writer Stephanie McCrummen accomplishes several rancid ambitions. 

She traduces Donald Trump (for about the thirty six-thousandth time, in that hissingly partisan paper), mocks mentally ill Trump backer Melanie Austin, and, by unveiled implication, casts as similarly delusional and conspiracy-credulous each and every one of the millions of American citizens endorsing the Trump campaign.

McCrummen doesn't explicitly say "basket of deplorables." But such maggoty, segregationist prejudice marks her disdainful prose at each turn.

I suspect some of the same bankrolled stooges who blubbered upon cue about Trump's imaginary mocking of a disabled reporter wriggled with darkish delight when cradling McCrummen's poisonous words.

"It was afternoon now, and Melanie got herself a glass of iced tea. She thought about the two legislators who had said that Hillary Clinton should be executed, and all the memes, and all the stories on the websites. The more she read, she said, the more certain she was becoming that she was not out of the ordinary, and her hospitalization, for instance, was just one more example of an unjust world. She went over it again: the police cruiser, the injections, the medical bills after."

Throughout her toxically dispositioned article, McCrummen ladles generously the mental illness slurring. Austin, the writer stage-whispers in shocked tone to her readers, relies upon anxiety medication, has been diagnosed with depression and PTSD, and was once involuntarily hospitalized.

"Homicidal ideation," a doctor once  jotted of Austin, a lewd tidbit far too juicy for McCrummen to withhold.

The unpleasant author also takes pains to assure her expensively manicured, liberal audience of her subject's working class character. She hurls like daggers references to Austin's Roseanne-showish "kitchen table," onetime membership in a religion-centered motorcycle club, quixotic confrontations with insurance behemoth bureaucrats, application for firehouse employ, and years of railroad work.

'Obviously, not one of our people,' upper middle class and ardently Democrat Washington Post subscribers surely sniffed over mid-morning espresso.

In a bio note appended to the article, the paper observes, "Stephanie McCrummen is a national enterprise reporter for the Washington Post. Previously, she was the paper's East Africa bureau chief. She has also reported from Egypt, Iraq, and Mexico, among other places."

What that means to us is that McCrummen surely knew well the difference between right and wrong, but also knew what her editors desired. And she allowed political bigotry to carry her off on an ugly and unfair crusade.

To the flabbergasting of absolutely no one, the Washington Post's editors shut off the public comment section at the conclusion of McCrummen's studied nastiness.

"We turn off the comments on stories dealing with personal loss, tragedies, or other serious topics."

Bullshit. Were the paper's powers at all sincere about minding propriety, they would not have orchestrated and published the smirking McCrummen's bigotry-based diatribe in the first place. 


end

They lie, that Hillary be crowned
CNN Clinton shills Smerconish and Cooper


This morning, I chronicled the foul 10/1 effort by CNN's sourly brattish Michael Smerconish to falsely deny Hillary Clinton's 1975 assisting of child-rapist Thomas Alfred Taylor in his eluding of proper punishment. 

(http://americanscenemagazine.blogspot.com/2016/10/deny-deny-deny-michael-smerconish-cnn.html)

But no sooner had that blog commentary been posted than I recalled an earlier and no less unethical, morally repugnant attempt essayed by another CNN sleaze-shoveler to similarly lie to viewers on behalf of his Chosen One, Hillary.

Last May, Trump supporter Kayleigh McEnany was interviewed by Anderson Cooper for a CNN "Battle for the White House" segment.

"Hillary Clinton blamed the victim," McEnany charged. "Number 101, when you are dealing with rape cases, don't blame the victim. She blamed a 12 year-old girl, a sixth-grade, 12 year-old girl of seeking the attention of older men and of fantasizing about older men. There's audio --"

"Wait!" Cooper interjected. "We haven't corroborated any of this!"

McEnany pointed out that the horrible Hillary/child rapist protection incident had already been widely reported.

"'Widely' doesn't mean anything," Cooper stammered. "It's not on this network, I would point out."

But CNN had indeed previously documented that shameful episode, and played the pertinent audio, contrary to the protestation of the proudly iniquitous Hillary fanboy. Linked below is a video contrasting Cooper's repeated and willful dishonesty with excerpts of earlier coverage by CNN's Jake Tapper. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkfTciQ_pS0

Comes now the question: What to make of CNN personalities Cooper and Smerconish maintaining with dogged energies that a story already confirmed by numerous news organizations, including their own employer, has somehow never been established?

It may be that CNN behind-cameras powers, cheerleading the Clinton campaign by the hour, each day, came to wish their channel had never confirmed the story. And that Cooper and Smerconish, being unencumbered by ethical conscience, dutifully regurgitated their corporate paymasters' rewriting of reality.

All of which could account for these rebarbative CNN hosts' repeatedly lying to their audiences. But none of which would grant the two absolution.

Completely random predictions

Doris Kearns Goodwin recently interviewed President Barack Obama for McClatchyDC.
(http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/white-house/article105126401.html)

He advised that, once he's left office, he will be more outspoken about issues important to him. And will address them in manners not always calculated to advance governmental policies, but that instead reflect his personal sensibilities.

My prediction: Once a civilian, Barack Obama may well be the first former American president to publicly kneel disrespectfully upon hearing our national anthem.


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There is, presently, enthusiasm in some quarters for ignoring national boundaries and legal citizenship standards. American history, culture, and national identity are often derided by naive young people and older sorts of scrambled disposition.

High profile illegal aliens such as journalist Jose Antonio Vargas wear their definitional criminality like badges of great honor. Millions more obscure illegal aliens infiltrate America regularly with neither regard for applicable law nor concern of prosecution.

Meanwhile, some US government officials zealously pursue the erasure of American identity in favor of a globalization in which all are simply nomadic "world citizens." 

My prediction: One future day, the trendy 'norm' will be citizenship maintained simultaneously in numerous lands. No one keeping to social trend will define themselves as "American."

Certainly, that would be far too great a change, involving too many people, to occur soon. But it may well develop over several generations. 

The shame in Chris's closet

"If you can't take their money, drink their whiskey, screw their women, and vote against them anyway, you don't belong in the legislature."

                                          (from Truthfeed)

That damning characterization of arrogant office-holders' time-honored guiding philosophy has been attributed to clever columnist Molly Ivins. But variations on it can also be found in the recorded words of numerous portly and cigar-chomping politicians, across decades.

Only a few years ago, Chris Matthews, irritating host of MSNBC's Hardball, laughingly shared those words with viewers. In his younger days, Matthews had come up as a congressional assistant to Tip O'Neil; the sentiment was surely popular and accepted, then.

Of course, in 2016, cultural and political mores have changed. And it seems nearly everyone in front of a news camera these days is at heart a 3rd Wave feminist, dyspeptic antiwhite racialist, and/or America hater.

Ever a trend-deferential careerist, Matthews surely would not still grinningly cite the slogan. For, just as he chooses suit jackets with audience reception doubtless in mind, so too, no doubt, does he accordingly tailor his public speech.

Next time you hear the giddy and forcibly obnoxious Chris Matthews cluck with pretended displeasure at a Donald Trump phrase, though, remember his own history of touting the attitudes reflected in the quote at this piece's outset.

CNN's Michael Smerconish playing with fire

Taking talk radio/cable news performer Michael Smerconish at face value would lead to inaccurate speculation.

He presents himself as garishly loud, gleeful in antagonizing ideologically oppositional guests, of markedly superficial intellect, and pretty much disagreeable in damn near every way.  

Never judge a book by its cover, though.

His website, http://www.smerconish.com/, lists numerous and impressive educational and professional achievements. Smerconish, his poison-clown schtick to one side, has over the decades realized many highly significant ambitions and received a host of industry recognitions. 

But it also seems that early on, Smerconish charted a media commentator success strategy familiar to countless large and limited-market talking heads who'd pursued triumphs before him.

The plan is not complex. At each possible turn, simply provoke as many listeners as possible. Court deafening controversy and blood-rushing enmity among those persons tuning in. Make oneself the story by waving, pulling faces, constantly belittling and cutting off guests, and shouting without let up. 

Get millions of viewers to shake with profound rage at your sneering, bird-flipping antics. Poke the bear.

Ratings may skyrocket, depending on commitment and ability.
But, there is a terrible downside possible:

In 1984, talk radio host Alan Berg was assassinated by right-wing terrorists he had challenged. Like Smerconish, Berg was an attorney as well as radio personality, and tended toward heated, on-air confrontations.

Certainly, Berg's frequent attacks on organized racists merit applause. One imagines few more detestable objects for public ridicule.

Anyone inferring from this essay a belief on the present author's part that either Berg or Smerconish bears even the slightest bit of responsibility for preventing violent, deranged idiots' crimes could not be more wrong.

The wonderful first amendment safeguards stormy rhetoric -- whether it owes to passionate principle or is merely contrived for disposable entertainment -- just as it does any innocuous speech form.

I'll go further: Citizens' free expression rights are by logical implication imperiled by the threat of violent assaults on any speakers. And any persons who would allow repression of ideas they do not share are simultaneously making possible the stifling of ones they themselves harbor.

Recognizing that there are random crazies out in listener-land, ones not capable of processing involved ideas without taking ugly retaliative action, is not endorsing them. Nor is it asserting that speakers filter themselves to suit the comfort of kooks.

But Smerconish should remember that such do lurk out there.

Deny deny deny
Michael Smerconish, CNN don't need no stinkin' evidence!

During Michael Smerconish's 10/1 CNN program, Vanderbilt Professor Carol Swain alluded to Hillary Clinton's audio-taped laughing about having in 1975 helped a child-rapist.

Following a commercial break, Smerconish assured his audience that neither he nor CNN had knowledge that such a clip even existed. "I don't know anything about that story," Smerconish swore to viewers.

The disputed audio recording not only exists, but was last year posted on the worldwide internet by the Washington Free Beacon newspaper.

http://freebeacon.com/politics/the-hillary-tapes/

The clip's existence and content were, since its 2015 online publication, covered by the Washington Post (which featured the audio on its own site), ABC News, CBS News, Fox News, Daily Caller, the Hill, Daily Beast, and others. "Fact check" pages like Snopes, TruthOrFiction, and FactCheck confirmed that the audio existed. It was also featured in stories on NewsBusters, RadarOnline, InformationClearinghouse, Breitbart, Conservative Treehouse, and more.

Smerconish and CNN's 10/1 denial of the audio clip's very existence against all that evidence presents only two possibilities:

1) The host and news channel were on 10/1 sincerely unaware of a globally available audio clip detrimental to major party presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, a clip whose existence had for about a year previous been acknowledged by numerous internationally-visible news organizations and which is still easily locatable on the internet.

2) Michael Smerconish and CNN purposefully lied.

Not being stupid, I've selected choice #2.

Kathy Shelton and Ricky Ray Rector
Two people Hillary Clinton would hope you never hear about


Kathy Shelton

                    (Earlier this year, Kathy Shelton was interviewed by the UK paper Daily Mail.)

Kathy Shelton was in 1975 an unassuming Arkansas 12 year-old. Her innocence was stolen from her by perverted adult Thomas Alfred Taylor. 

He raped the little girl. 

Taylor's cause was taken up by then-lawyer Hillary Clinton. It was her first case. Taylor was ultimately convicted, but not before Hillary had perpetrated a vicious courtroom attack on the little abuse survivor.

We all understand that a person accused of a crime has the constitutional right to counsel. And that the burden of proof rests properly with the state. No citizen should be convicted of a legal offense and suffer penalty unless prosecutors present a convincing, unimpeachable case.

But when interviewed some five years after that trial, when she was no longer bound by ethical constraint and could freely speak her personal opinion, Hillary Clinton laughed; the predatory sexual deviant Taylor, with her learned and lettered assistance, had succeeded in fooling the polygraph.

Clinton herself had all along been confident of her foul client's guilt. But she'd cagily exploited a technicality to win him a substantial reduction at sentencing. 
(An audio clip of this interview was uncovered and made available by the Washington Free Beacon: 
http://freebeacon.com/politics/the-hillary-tapes/)

Elementary school student Shelton had after the brutal assault required considerable surgical attention and was never able to have children. For her part, Hillary Clinton went on to cast herself before cheering campaign crowds as a principled, 'advocate for girls and women.'

Ricky Ray Rector

  (Painting by Derek Kosbab)

In his 4/28/2015 Politico article, "Hillary Clinton's forgotten death penalty shift," writer Adam B. Lerner observes that onetime execution opponents Bill and Hillary had no difficulty reinventing themselves as enthusiastic death penalty champions when political fortune dictated they do so.

(http://www.politico.com/story/2015/04/hillary-clintons-forgotten-death-penalty-shift-117441_Page2.html)

From Politico:

"The Clintons' full approval of the death penalty was underscored on Jan. 24. 1992, less than a month before the New Hampshire primary that made Clinton the 'comeback kid.' Clinton had flown back to Little Rock to oversee the execution of Ricky Ray Rector, a man who had lobotomized himself in an attempted suicide. On that night, as Rector's executioners struggled to insert the needle for lethal injection, Newsday reported that a clemency request came as Bill and Hillary were preparing for an interview with Gennifer Flowers."

So irrevocably mentally impaired was Rector that, as guards ushered him to the death chamber, he requested that he be allowed to finish his last meal upon returning.

Commentators at the time called it Bill's 'Willie Horton moment.' With that single, politically-schemed stroke, he illustrated to voters his complete lack of respectable character and capacity for racial demonization. (These dubious traits would later be portrayed by his presidential pushing of mass incarceration legislation, effectively disappearing much of an entire generation of black men to the prison plantation and destroying their families' lives.)

It goes without remark that no one can reasonably be deemed culpable for their spouse's misbehavior. But here's why all this is today very relevant: Hillary's 2016 position of influence and electoral viability is founded, partly, on the Clintons' shared past.

So, what was Hillary's reaction to her Arkansas governor husband's reptilian and politically-prompted killing of the mentally enfeebled Rector? Did she decry that forsaken prisoner's execution as loudly and spiritedly as she had championed the cause of child rapist Thomas Alfred Taylor?

Hardly. Politico's Lerner noted that, "Hillary never spoke of it."