The Washington Post is aligned with and carries the water for Demorats and Leftists across the nation. Of that there is no doubt. They don’t mind attributing stories to completely anonymous sources which means that, essentially, unless challenged in court, an anonymous source could be no more than an artful but unauthenticated fart at lunch.
That is to say: the Russian narrative is dying. The Demorats are discovering the door they insisted be opened is leading primarily back to themselves.
Embarrassment as Washington Post corrects its ‘scoop’ about Obama, Facebook and Russia
by Brian Flood
The Washington Post has made a correction to an explosive cover story that undermines the entire premise of Monday’s front-page article headlined, “Obama sought to prod Facebook on Russia role.”
The problem, according to a Facebook executive, is that when Obama reached out to the social media giant in 2016 to discuss political disinformation spreading on the site, he didn’t actually call out Russia – essentially making the Post’s headline misleading and inaccurate. Or, as President Trump would call it, “fake news.”
As first reported by Axios, the Post added significant information to the digital version of the story with the disclaimer, “This story has been updated with an additional response from Facebook.” The response from Facebook that didn’t make the paper’s print edition is vital and changed the story enough that the word “Russia” was removed from the updated headline.
The story detailed how then-President Obama gave Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg a “wake-up call” regarding fake news spreading on his social media platform. After reporting that Obama “made a personal appeal to Zuckerberg to take the threat of fake news and political disinformation seriously,” the paper has added that Obama “did not single out Russia specifically.”
There might be a problem with that.
Oh but wait; there’s more. And its buttery goodness is both simultaneously salacious and satisfying in terms of, well, schadenfreude.
Leaked Descriptions Of Infamous “Russia Ads” Derail Collusion Narrative “They Showed Support For Clinton”
by Tyler Durden
That was quick.
Less than a week after Facebook agreed to turn over to Congressional investigators copies of the 3,000-odd political advertisements that the company said it had inadvertently sold to a Russia-linked group intent on meddling in the 2016 presidential election, the contents of the ads have – unsurprisingly – leaked, just as we had expected them to.
Congressional investigators shared the information with Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team, which has repeatedly allowed information about its investigation into whether members of the Trump campaign actively colluded with Russian operatives to leak to the press. Once this happened, we knew it was only a matter of time before the ads became part of the public record.
Uh-oh. Are we about to destroy a narrative? A Leftist narrative?
And, shockingly, descriptions of the ads provided to the Washington Post hardly fit the narrative that Democratic lawmakers have spun in recent weeks, claiming the ads – which didn’t advocate on behalf of a specific candidate, but rather hewed to political issues like abortion rights – were instrumental in securing Trump’s victory.
After initially denying the story this spring, Facebook came clean earlier this month, saying its investigators had discovered that the company sold at least $100,000 worth of ads – and possibly as much as $150,000 – to Russia-linked group that bought the ads through 470 phony Facebook pages and accounts.
WaPo reports that the ads represented issues on both sides of the ideological spectrum, which would suggest that the buyers didn’t intend to support a specific candidate, but rather their own unique agenda.
The batch of more than 3,000 Russian-bought ads that Facebook is preparing to turn over to Congress shows a deep understanding of social divides in American society, with some ads promoting African-American rights groups including Black Lives Matter and others suggesting that these same groups pose a rising political threat, say people familiar with the covert influence campaign.
The Russian campaign — taking advantage of Facebook’s ability to simultaneously send contrary messages to different groups of users based on their political and demographic characteristics – also sought to sow discord among religious groups. Other ads highlighted support for Democrat Hillary Clinton among Muslim women.
Of course, support for Hillary Clinton among minority groups was less enthusiastic than it was for Barack Obama, suggesting that the ads perhaps weren’t as effective as some Democratic lawmakers would have voters believe. Despite the innocuous description, WaPo insisted on reporting that the ads were meant to “sow dischord” among different voting blocs that supported Clinton. The paper of record also reported that the targeted messages “highlight the sophistication of an influence campaign slickly crafted to mimic and infiltrate US political discourse”…again without explaining exactly how they accomplished this.
With little else to cling to, it appears that investigators – not to mention Trump’s critics – have invested so much in the Facebook interference narrative (not to mention Paul Manafort’s dealings with pro-Russian oligarchs), that admitting they were wrong would just be too damaging.
Thank you.
But wait; there’s more buttery political goodness.
Congress might not be able to protect Mueller from firing
by Brian Murphy
WASHINGTON
Congress may be unable to provide any job protection legislatively for special counsel Robert Mueller, whose wide-ranging investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election continues to anger President Donald Trump.
While Trump confidant Roger Stone was defending himself in front of a separate committee elsewhere on Capitol Hill, legal scholars offered competing views on whether two Senate bills designed to protect Mueller from firing by Trump or someone in the Justice Department would pass constitutional muster during a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
I’ve said this before and I’ll repeat.
The Demorats will rue the day they ever began the “Russia” narrative.
They managed to open a door that led not necessarily to Republicans, but to the arcane, deceptive and corrupt machinations of Demorats themselves.
You and I both know that had Mueller found incredibly-damaging material about Donald Trump or associates showing clear and utter linkage with Russia in terms of, say, cash influence or — better yet, just like the Clintons and the Clinton Foundation — influence and decisions for cash or “donations” you know that leak would already have occurred.
Silence in and of itself can sometimes be a massive clue.
Featuring Right thinking from a left brain, doing the job the American Media Maggots won’t, embracing ubiquitous, sagacious perspicacity and broadcasting behind enemy lines in Occupied Fornicalia from the veritable Belly of the Beast, the Bill Mill in Sacramento, Fornicalia, I continue to proffer my thanks to the SHR Media Network for allowing me to utilize their studio and hijack their air twice weekly, Tuesdays and Thursdays, thanks to my shameless contract, as well as appear on the Sack Heads Radio Show each Wednesday evening.
Tuesday’s show featured Dan Butcher of High Plains Pundit fame and media magnate extraordinaire, who weighed in on — well, perhaps something having a teensy-weensy bit to do with the National Football League? If you said “yes,” you’d be absolutely correct. He also spoke about a subject near and dear to his heart: the Dallas Cowboys.
Tonight in the Saloon:
This is my first official interface with our new Arrakis ARC Talk Blu board; who will win, me or the board?
Fabulous, the phone lines work through the new board!
Fabulous, the audio cuts work through the new board!
Dan informs us about the Sunday story that few covered: the mass shooting at a Tennessee church by a Sudanese immigrant who murdered a person in the parking lot and then shot inside the church;
One woman was killed and six others shot inside the church; this was black-on-white crime that was buried by the New York Times on page 14;
Dylann Roof targeted blacks and was covered by the American Media Maggots; the Sudanese immigrant targeted churchgoing Caucasoids and was ignored;
This story didn’t fit the Leftist Narrative and was subsequently buried deep;
Dan is the New Journalism, as am I and others like us;
Dan gets about 16 million page views per month; he’s NOT fake news;
People are hungry for news and the actual truth, unbiased and unvarnished;
The NFL is discovering that the stance of itself and the players is backfiring;
Alejandro Villanueva changed his tune; was he pressured by his teammates?
Monday Night Football ratings spiked because people tuned in to see if the Dallas Cowboys created a stir; they, in fact, did;
If you care to watch the show on YouTube, please click on start.
This Thursday we’ll be speaking to The Underground Professor, Dr Michael Jones, about Constitutional issues such as positive vs negative rights.
Please join me, the Bloviating Zeppelin(on Twitter @BZep and on Gab.ai @BZep), every Tuesday and Thursday night on the SHR Media Network from 11 PM to 1 AM Eastern and 8 PM to 10 PM Pacific, at the Berserk Bobcat Saloon — where the speech is free but the drinks are not.
As ever, thank you so kindly for listening, commenting, and interacting in the chat room or listening later via podcast.
Want to listen to all the Berserk Bobcat Saloon archives in podcast? Go here. Want to watch the past shows on YouTube? Please visit the SHR Media Network YouTube channel here.
Do I mean “final threat” in terms of “North Korea has decided to turn over a new leaf and cease hostilities”?
Hardly.
I instead mean that those may be the final threats North Korea makes if it carries through with same, as the response might leave North Korea filled with craters, ruts, and not much else. Perhaps even radioactive glass.
“Korea had to react because of Trump’s speech at the United Nations. I don’t how North Koreans can back down. They have to continue with provocations.” This passes for insight on American Media Maggot television? No more than base propaganda?
Country’s foreign minister says Pyongyang is justified to down U.S. planes in international airspace
UNITED NATIONS—North Korea’s foreign minister said Monday the U.S. had declared war on North Korea and his country considered all possible responses to be on the table.
Ri Yong Ho, speaking to reporters in New York, said North Korea now has “every right to make countermeasures, including the right to shoot down U.S. strategic bombers, even if they are not yet inside the airspace border of our country.” U.S. warplanes on Saturday flew near the North Korean coastline north of the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea.
Of course, the president did no such thing and said no such thing.
Let’s repeat the threat by North Korea: “even if they are not yet inside the airspace border of our country.”
So let’s then ask: just what is that “border” and how far above and beyond North Korea does that border extend?
By international law, the notion of a country’s sovereign airspace corresponds with the maritime definition of territorial waters as being 12 nautical miles (22.2 km) out from a nation’s coastline. Airspace not within any country’s territorial limit is considered international, analogous to the “high seas” in maritime law.
Another very important aspect, however, is this: what is the vertical issue? Or is there even such a thing?
There is no international agreement on the vertical extent of sovereign airspace, with suggestions ranging from about 30 km (19 mi)—the extent of the highest aircraft and balloons—to about 160 km (99 mi)—the lowest extent of short-term stable orbits.
With this in mind, North Korea had best be quite circumspect — something they do not quite possess at all: circumspection.
Let us also not forget this is the individual, Kim Jong Un, who had his own brother, Kim Jong-ham assassinated.
The Untold Story of Kim Jong-nam’s Assassination
by Doug Clark
Two women had the most audacious task. Killing the brother of the North Korean leader. Right out in the open, using deadly chemical weapons in an international airport. And the craziest thing? They had no idea what they’d gotten into.
When Kim Jong-nam was a boy, his father, the dictator of North Korea, sat him on his office chair and said, “When you grow up, this is where you’ll sit and give orders.” If the child had fulfilled that promise—if his half brother, Kim Jong-un, had not ultimately usurped his throne—he would have tyrannized 25 million people. His pudgy finger would have caressed the launch buttons of nukes. America and China would have debated how to manage him.
But as Jong-nam glanced up at the departures board in the international airport of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, the jostling crowd ignored him. He had become just another overweight 45-year-old, the bald spot that he usually hid with a cap showing through his remaining hair like a bull’s-eye.
Still, the two beautiful young women destined to kill him picked out their mark.
As Jong-nam sauntered toward the closest AirAsia self-check-in kiosk at 8:59 A.M. on February 13, an Indonesian woman in stylishly torn jeans and a gray sleeveless top slipped out from behind a pillar. She covered his eyes as if playing peekaboo and then wiped her hands over his mouth, leaving an oily smear.
“Who are you?” Jong-nam demanded.
“Sorry! Sorry!” she answered before disappearing into the crowd.
And thusly a challenge to the power of Kim Jong Un was removed. Badly. Baldly. But finally.
A second later, a Vietnamese woman wearing a white jumper emblazoned with LOL threw her arms over his shoulders and rubbed her hands across his face. She apologized, too, before hurrying in the opposite direction of the Indonesian woman.
You need to read this.
Already, the liquid that the women had applied was seeping into Jong-nam, rapidly jamming his muscles’ receptors in the “on” position, causing his muscles to constantly contract as if struck by endless cramps. The liquid was VX, a chemical weapon that the CDC calls the “most potent of all nerve agents” and that the United Nations classifies as a weapon of mass destruction. He absorbed a lethal dose, which could have been as small as a drop.
Jong-nam started toward the bathroom—and then lost his only chance to wash off the poison and survive when he rerouted to a nearby information desk. There, he moaned in English, “Very painful, very painful, I was sprayed liquid.” By the time an attendant led him to three policemen, who were chatting rather than monitoring the crowds, he could only groan incoherently as he jabbed at his face with both hands.
That’s the extent to which Kim Jong Un will push.
And then some, by all accounts.
Most recently Kim Jong Un has threatened an underwater nuclear test.
North Korea: What would happen if Kim Jong-un ordered nuclear explosion in Pacific
by Dave Mosher
North Korea may be planning one of the most powerful nuclear explosions in history, if the nation’s foreign minister is to be believed.
The US, Russia, China, and other countries have carried out more than 2,000 nuclear test blasts since 1945.
More than 500 of these explosions occurred on soil, in space, on barges, or underwater. But most of these happened early in the Cold War — before the risks to innocent people and the environment were well-understood. Nearly all countries now ban nuclear testing.
Precisely. With good cause. Which makes this potential test of extreme concern.
The problem with nuclear test explosions is that they create radioactive fallout. Space detonations come with their own risks, including a more widespread electromagnetic pulse.
Only a fraction of a nuclear weapon’s core is turned into energy during an explosion; the rest is irradiated, melted, and turned into fine particles. This creates a small amount of fallout that can be lofted into the atmosphere and spread around.
Stop. Is this an excuse for North Korea to create an EMP and then step back by saying they could never have foreseen the consequences?
But the risk of fallout vastly increases when a blast occurs close to the ground or water. There, a nuclear explosion can suck up dirt, debris, water, and other materials, creating many tons of radioactive fallout — and this material rises high into the atmosphere, where it drifts for hundreds of miles.
This kind of Cold War-era fallout killed scores of innocent people in the Pacific, including Japanese fishermen, and is still causing cancer and health problems around the world today.
All the more reason to not conduct an underwater test today? Have we learned nothing from history? From ScienceAlert.com:
All of these scenarios assume North Korea sets off a thermonuclear device in a controlled way – via aeroplane, barge, balloon, or some kind of stationary platform.
But the risk to people also largely depends on whether or not North Korea launches a nuclear warhead on an intercontinental ballistic missile or a shorter-range rocket, such as one launched from a submarine.
If successful, such a missile test would show North Korea has miniaturised its weapons. And if the blast appears to be caused by a hydrogen bomb, it would show North Korea could pull off a devastating thermonuclear strike on US soil.
But missiles are prone to failure in multiple ways, especially those in early development. A North Korean ICBM tipped with a nuclear warhead might miss its target by a significant distance, or explode en route.
This could lead to detonation in an unintended place and altitude.
This is especially true if the missile has no self-destruct capability – ICBMs maintained by the US don’t. In that case, only hacking the missile’s software in mid-air, or destroying it with another weapon, could stop the launch.
“The stakes and heat in this conflict have not been this high since the Korean War,” Tristan Webb, a senior analyst for NK News, said in a story published by the outlet on Friday.
“Kim Jong Un said in July that the … showdown was entering its final phase. He appears psychologically prepared for conflict.”
Today’s media portrays President Donald Trump as the only one to have ever “threatened” North Korea. That couldn’t be further from the truth. From the Spectator.com:
When Bill Clinton Threatened to ‘End’ North Korea
by Paul Kengor
Have liberal critics of President Trump’s remarks yesterday forgotten how they reacted 24 years ago?
The liberal media is going ballistic over President Trump’s UN speech, launching into collective orbit over Trump again mocking little man Kim as “rocket man.” This time, President Trump made that jab not from his Twitter account on a Sunday morning but from the world’s biggest international stage: the vaunted assembly of the United Nations in its diplomatic splendor on the East River. The media exploded over Trump’s threat to “totally destroy” North Korea if crazy Kim attacked the United States or its allies.
The New York Timesnews article on Trump’s UN speech no less than seven times singled out his words “totally destroy,” though not once did it give the complete context. Here’s the passage, which must be read in full:
The United States has great strength and patience, but if it is forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea. Rocket Man is on a suicide mission for himself and for his regime. The United States is ready, willing and able, but hopefully this will not be necessary. That’s what the United Nations is all about; that’s what the United Nations is for. Let’s see how they do.
It’s a remarkable passage and an intriguing one. Read it twice, carefully. Note the initial “but if.” It’s couched within a scenario of America being “forced to defend itself or its allies.” It’s a defensive, not offensive, scenario — one in which the United States is left with “no choice.” That’s a “no choice,” says Trump, which “hopefully … will not be necessary.” Moreover, Trump even put that ball in the UN’s court, stating that such is what the “United Nations is all about.” It’s what the “United Nations is for.” He even offered, “Let’s see how they [the United Nations] do.”
When read carefully, as this passage needs to be, we see that isn’t an instance of Trump recklessly bloviating from his Twitter account with no staffer able to filter him. No, this was pre-written and pre-approved and crafted by advisers with deliberate intentions.
Well, before they get too hysterical, they might want to go back a couple of decades and read the words of Bill Clinton.
It was July 1993, and Hillary’s husband, a mere half year into his presidency, was dealing with little Kim’s little grand-pappy, another Marxist madman, the progenitor of this communist-totalitarian hereditary dictatorship. On July 9, 1993, as the Washington Post reported at the time, Bill Clinton, amid a major swing through Asia, told the media the following of U.S. policy toward North Korea under his administration: “We would overwhelmingly retaliate if [the North Koreans] were to ever use, to develop and use nuclear weapons. It would mean the end of their country as they know it.”
For the record, he also added, “North Korea is just one of many renegade nations that would like to have nuclear weapons and be unaccountable for them, and we can’t let it happen.”
The American Media Maggots act — purposely so — as if President Trump’s words ceaselessly occur in a total vacuum. No one has ever uttered such words before. Ever.
Clinton’s comments were widely covered at the time, including by the New York Times, which reported: “On his weekend visit to South Korea, President Clinton warned that if North Korea developed and used an atomic weapon, ‘we would quickly and overwhelmingly retaliate.’” He said, “It would mean the end of their country as they know it.”
To repeat: the end of their country as they know it.
What was their response? They loved it. They pumped their firsts. They pounded their chests. They gave high-fives. They yelled “Woot! Woot! Woot!”
Yes, the very same peaceniks who throughout the 1980s had derided Ronald Reagan as a trigger-happy cowboy and nuclear warmonger, who had run George H.W. Bush out of office after he drove Saddam Hussein from Kuwait, suddenly yanked the daisies from their hair and gun barrels and were ready to storm out to SAC headquarters to board their Super-fortress for Pyongyang. They had become Slim Pickens in Dr. Strangelove.
Any time you hear or read of the American Media Maggots jabbering about President Trump, a klaxon should be going off in your wheelhouse. Trump’s comments don’t generally occur in a vacuum. And you can make book that similar comments have historically been made by a Demorat before.
The American Media Maggots just don’t care about that. They want Trump’s words to appear as though they do in fact occur in a vacuum. I call this Historical Alzheimers. But it’s no coincidence.
In the meantime, what will North Korea truly do?
Will they solve the problem of their existence all by themselves?
You just drew your final line with me, National Football League.
You and all your sponsors and your Leftist sycophants at ESPN can all go to hell.
You are dead to me.
What’s acceptable and unacceptable in the NFL. The bottom are shoes of Tennessee Titans player Avery Williamson who was threatened by the NFL and Commissioner Roger Goodell when he wanted to wear them in honor of 9/11.
Also, remember when NFL Commissioner Goodell refused to allow the Dallas Cowboys to wear a sticker honoring five murdered Dallas Police officers in 2016? I certainly do, as I wrote about it in August last year.
Here is the heinously-offensive sticker that had to be removed and never further applied. A five-pointed star, with each point to represent one murdered officer.
NFL rejects Cowboys petition to wear helmet decal memorializing Dallas officers that were killed
by Daniel O’Leary
The NFL has gone from the No Fun League to the No Feelings League.
According to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, the Dallas Cowboys filed a petition for permission to wear a helmet decal memorializing the five officers killed in a tragic shooting in Dallas back in July.
The decal featured a star – similar to the one featured prominently in the Dallas PD logo – with a black circle around it and the phrase “Arm In Arm,” to signify support for the police and the Dallas community after the tragedy. The Cowboys opened up training camp while walking with their arms interlocked with members of the Dallas police department.
The team has worn the decal on its helmets during training camp, but will now have to be removed. According to the Star-Telegram, Cowboys VP Stephen Jones said the league had already rejected the team’s petition to wear it during the regular season but extended the ban to the preseason as well.
“Expanded the ban to the pre-season as well.” Translated: not just no, but hell no.
Anyone perceive the slightest bit of hypocrisy? Anywhere?
Let’s first start with this, as the Ravens and Jaguars decide to all take a knee across the pond at Wembley Stadium in England this Black Sunday the 24th.
In rebuke to Trump, Ravens and Jaguars take a knee in London during US national anthem
About two dozen players, including Baltimore Ravens linebacker Terrell Suggs and Jacksonville Jaguars running back Leonard Fournette, took a knee during the playing of the national anthem before the start of the teams’ game at Wembley Stadium on Sunday.
Other players on one knee during the performance included Ravens linebacker C.J. Mosley, wide receiver Mike Wallace and safety Lardarius Webb as well as Jaguars linebacker Dante Fowler, defensive tackle Calais Campbell, defensive end Yannick Ngakoue and cornerback Jalen Ramsey.
Players on both teams and Jaguars owner Shad Khan, who were not kneeling, remained locked arm-in-arm throughout the playing of the national anthem and “God Save The Queen,” the national anthem of Britain.
No players were kneeling during the playing of the British national anthem.
Of course not. That might offend the Brits. They’re a new and expanding market.
NFL, oh yes, you’ll definitely need some new and expanding markets after this Black Sunday the 24th.
Then there is this, from ESPN.com. I want you to see and read how this is crafted by ESPN and Leftist journalistas.
Steelers remain in locker room during the national anthem
by Jeremy Fowler
CHICAGO — In a sign of solidarity, the Pittsburgh Steelers stayed in the locker room during the national anthem before their 1 p.m. ET kickoff with the Chicago Bears.
As the anthem began in Soldier Field, several Steelers coaches were on the sideline, including head coach Mike Tomlin, while the players were not present. Offensive coordinator Todd Haley, offensive line coach Mike Munchak and running backs coach James Saxon also were spotted.
ESPN translation? Race traitors and racists, every one of them.
Players took the field within a few seconds of the anthem’s end, just after fireworks launched, with quarterback Ben Roethlisberger one of the first players out of the tunnel.
Note this:
Left tackle Alejandro Villanueva, an Army Ranger who served in Afghanistan, was seen on the CBS broadcast at the edge of the tunnel during the anthem, hand over heart.
The entire Steelers team stayed in the locker room for national anthem except for Villanueva who served 3 tours in Afghanistan.
A true hero pic.twitter.com/nnDsHrwym3
Trust me. There are already Leftists readily attempting to identify and locate the black employee at the bottom left of the photo, hand over heart like most Americans, in order to expose him, humiliate him, embarrass him, perhaps even harm him.
He was outside. Standing. One man. Hand over heart. During the national anthem. One man who had served in the US military, who had served his nation and who had the courage, the balls, to be the one Steeler who honored and respected the US flag.
Standing. One man. Hand over heart.
But wait; there’s more. One day later Villanueva had regrets. He feels he let his team down. Translated: he’s a good man but the rest of his teammates made him feel guilty for his stance.
Other people weighed in on the NFL issue. Why is it that the bulk of the insightful and cogent opinions were by young black males? Listen. First from CJ Pearson.
Then there was this brilliant piece by Brandon Tatum.
As far as the NFL is concerned — just like Hillary Rodham Clinton — it doesn’t have a problem. Everyone else has the problem. It’s everyone else’s fault but theirs.
And, like Hillary, they lack the ability to conduct introspection or self examination despite Captain Obvious visiting on a daily basis.
It’s Shocking How Empty The Stadium Was For Thursday Night Football
by David Hookstead
The San Francisco 49ers Thursday night game against the Los Angeles Rams kicked off in front of a nearly empty stadium.
Los Angeles Times reporter Lindsey Thiry tweeted a photo at the time of kickoff, which showed thousands of open seats. In fact, most sections in the photo have more empty seats than fans.
Further, we must remember the probity and innocence of the NFL players themselves, anyway. Ahem.
So what is this really about? You should ask the question and all the involved players should ask the question. Is it about this loose word “unity” as some are insisting? Unity in what, specifically? Unity in terms of only what those on the Left are advocating?
Or is it — as I suspect — about what Colin Kaepernick originally stated? The rampant and overwhelming gunning-down by Caucasoid police officers of innocent and unarmed young black males?
Except that premise is a fallacy. Police shootings of blacks have gone down over the years, not up.
And the media narrative to the contrary is damaging.
A few days ago, former police officer Jason Stockley, who is white, was acquitted of first-degree murder; he had fatally shot Anthony Lamar Smith, who was black, in 2011. Protests started in St. Louis, where the shooting took place and Stockley was judged, immediately after the verdict was announced. Although they were initially peaceful, they soon turned violent, and dozens of protesters were arrested while several police officers were injured. Since the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, just outside St. Louis, in 2014, this has become a familiar pattern.
This article is not about whether Stockley should have been acquitted. Instead, I want to talk about the underlying narrative regarding the prevalence of police brutality against black men in the U.S., which is largely undisputed in the media.
According to this narrative, black men are constantly harassed by the police and routinely brutalized with impunity, even when they have done nothing wrong, and there is an “epidemic of police shootings of unarmed black men.” Even high-profile black celebrities often claim to be afraid of the police because the same thing might happen to them. Police brutality, or at least the possibility that one might become a victim of such violence, is supposed to be part of the experience of a typical black man in the U.S. Events such as the death of Brown in Ferguson are presented as proof that black men are never safe from the police.
This narrative is false. In reality, a randomly selected black man is overwhelmingly unlikely to be victim of police violence — and though white men experience such violence even less often, the disparity is consistent with the racial gap in violent crime, suggesting that the role of racial bias is small. The media’s acceptance of the false narrative poisons the relations between law enforcement and black communities throughout the country and results in violent protests that destroy property and sometimes even claim lives. Perhaps even more importantly, the narrative distracts from far more serious problems that black Americans face.
Let’s start with the question of fatal violence. Last year, according to the Washington Post’s tally, just 16 unarmed black men, out of a population of more than 20 million, were killed by the police. The year before, the number was 36. These figures are likely close to the number of black men struck by lightning in a given year, considering that happens to about 300 Americans annually and black men are 7 percent of the population. And they include cases where the shooting was justified, even if the person killed was unarmed.
Of course, police killings are not the result of a force of nature, and I’m not claiming these are morally equivalent. But the comparison illustrates that these killings are incredibly rare, and that it’s completely misleading to talk about an “epidemic” of them. You don’t hear people talk about an epidemic of lightning strikes and claim they are afraid to go outside because of it. Liberals often make the same comparison when they argue that it’s completely irrational to fear that you might become a victim of terrorism.
One might retort that, while it may be rare for a black man to be killed by the police, black men are still constantly stopped and routinely brutalized by the police, even if they don’t die from it. However, even this weaker claim is false. It just isn’t true that black men are kicked, punched, etc., on a regular basis by the police.
In order to show that, I’m going to use data from the Police-Public Contact Survey (PPCS), which, as its name suggests, provides detailed information about contacts between the police and the public. It’s conducted on a regular basis by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) and is based on a nationally representative sample of more than 70,000 U.S. residents age 16 or older. Respondents are asked whether they had a contact with the police during the past 12 months; if they say they did, they answer a battery of questions about the nature of their last contact, including any use of force. Since the respondents also provide their age, race, gender, etc., we can use this survey to calculate the prevalence of police violence for various demographic groups. The numbers in this piece are from my own analysis of the data, the details and code for which I provide here, but they are consistent with a 2015 report compiled by the BJS itself to the extent the two overlap.
First, despite what the narrative claims, it’s not true that black men are constantly stopped by the police for no reason. Indeed, black men are less likely than white men to have contact with the police in any given year, though this includes situations where the respondent called the cops himself: 17.5 percent versus 20.7 percent. Similarly, a black man has on average only 0.32 contacts with the police in any given year, compared with 0.35 contacts for a white man. It’s true that black men are overrepresented among people who have many contacts with the police, but not by much. Only 1.5 percent of black men have more than three contacts with the police in any given year, whereas 1.2 percent of white men do.
If we look at how often the police use physical force against men of different races, we find that there is indeed a racial disparity, but that this experience is rare across the board. Only 0.6 percent of black men experience physical force by the police in any given year, while approximately 0.2 percent of white men do. To be fair, these are probably slight undercounts, because the survey does not allow us to identify people who did not experience physical force during their most recent contact but did experience such force during a previous contact in the same year.
Further, physical force as defined by the PPCS includes relatively mild forms of violence such as pushing and grabbing. Actual injuries by the police are so rare that one cannot estimate them very precisely even in a survey as big as the PPCS, but the available data suggest that only 0.08 percent of black men are injured by the police each year, approximately the same rate as for white men. A black man is about 44 times as likely to suffer a traffic-related injury, according to the National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey. Moreover, keep in mind that these tallies of police violence include violence that is legally justified.
Now, it’s true that there are significant differences in the rates at which men of different races experience police violence — 0.6 percent is triple 0.2 percent. However, although people often equate racial disparities with bias, this inference is fallacious, as can be seen through an analogy with gender: Men are vastly more likely to experience police violence than women are, but while bias may explain part of this disparity, nobody doubts that most of it has to do with the fact that men are on average far more violent than women. Similarly, if black men commit violent crimes at much higher rates than white men, that might have a lot to do with the disparity in the use of force by the police.
This is evident in the National Crime Victimization Survey, another survey of the public conducted by the BJS. Interviewers ask respondents if they have been the victim of a crime in the past 12 months; if they have, respondents provide information about the nature of the incidents, including the race and ethnicity of the offenders. This makes it possible to measure racial differences in crime rates without relying on data from the criminal-justice system, in which racial bias could lead to higher rates of arrest and conviction for black men even if they commit violence at the same rate.
NCVS data from 2015, the most recent year available, suggest that black men are three times as likely to commit violent crimes as white men. To the extent that cops are more likely to use force against people who commit violent crimes, which they surely are, this could easily explain the disparities we have observed in the rates at which the police use force. That’s not to say that bias plays no role; I’m sure it does play one. But it’s unlikely to explain a very large part of the discrepancy.
Some might say that, instead of consulting statistics like these, we should defer to black Americans’ own perceptions of how the police treat them. As various polls have demonstrated, black people are much more likely than white people to think that police violence against minorities is very common. But the issue cannot be settled this way.
Since individuals have direct knowledge of what happened to them personally, you can trust them about that. But when it comes to larger social phenomena, people’s beliefs are influenced by far more than just their personal experience, including the media. The far more compelling fact is that, if you draw a representative sample of the population and ask each black man in that sample whether a police officer has used physical force against him in the past year, you find that it’s extremely rare.
On many issues, liberals have no problem recognizing this problem. For instance, there is a cottage industry of articles deploring the fact that, although crime has fallen spectacularly in the U.S. since the 1990s, most Americans believe it has increased. Liberals are absolutely right to point out this misperception, but if people of any color can be wrong about this, there is no reason to think black people can’t be wrong about the prevalence of police violence against minorities.
Let’s throw in some more facts. Facts that some apologist elements may not care for because they’re, well, factual. Heather McDonald, a significant author when it comes to law enforcement facts and statistics, notes:
A recent “deadly force” study by Washington State University researcher Lois James found that police officers were less likely to shoot unarmed black suspects than unarmed white or Hispanic ones in simulated threat scenarios. Harvard economics professor Roland Fryer analyzed more than 1,000 officer-involved shootings across the country. He concluded that there is zero evidence of racial bias in police shootings. In Houston, he found that blacks were 24 percent less likely than whites to be shot by officers even though the suspects were armed or violent.
An analysis of the Washington Post’s Police Shooting Database and of Federal Crime Statistics reveals that fully 12 percent of all whites and Hispanics who die of homicide are killed by cops. By contrast, only four percent of black homicide victims are killed by cops.
But isn’t it a sign of bias that blacks make up 26 percent of police-shooting victims, but only 13 percent of the national population? It is not, and common sense suggests why. Police shootings occur more frequently where officers confront armed or violently resisting suspects. Those suspects are disproportionately black.
Here are more damning facts that race apologists, racists, Race and Poverty Pimps, Leftists and Demorats don’t want you to know.
According to the most recent study by the Department of Justice, although blacks were only about 15 percent of the population in the 75 largest counties in the US, they were charged with 62 percent of all robberies, 57 percent of murders and 45 percent of assaults. In New York City, blacks commit over three-quarters of all shootings, though they are only 23 percent of the city’s population. Whites, by contrast, commit under two percent of all shootings in the city, though they are 34 percent of the population. New York’s crime disparities are repeated in virtually every racially diverse city in America. The real problem facing inner-city black communities today is not the police but criminals.
In 2014, over 6,000 blacks were murdered, more than all white and Hispanic homicide victims combined. Who is killing them? Not the police, and not white civilians, but other blacks. In fact, a police officer is eighteen and a half times more likely to be killed by a black male than an unarmed black male is to be killed by a police officer. If the police ended all use of lethal force tomorrow, it would have a negligible impact on the black death-by-homicide rate.
In Chicago, through just the first six-and-a-half months of 2016, over 2,300 people were shot. That’s a shooting an hour during some weekends. The vast majority of the victims were black. During this same period, the Chicago police shot 12 people, all armed and dangerous. That’s one half of one percent of all shootings.
The problem is now, with that and more, crime is going up. From UPI.com:
FBI: Violent crime up in 2016 for second year in a row
by Allen Cone
Sept. 25 (UPI) — Violent crime across the United States increased in 2016 for the second year in a row — a climb of 4 percent, according to annual figures released Monday by the FBI.
The 2016 violent crime rate was 386 offenses per 100,000 inhabitants — up from 373 in 2015, and the highest figure since 2012.
The FBI said last year there were 1,248,185 violent crimes — which include murder and non-negligent manslaughter, rape, robbery and aggravated assault. The report noted that those types of crimes increased across all population categories.
The 2016 rate, though, was still 18 percent lower than it was a decade ago — and the murder rate was 6 percent lower.
The Justice Department said the data report “reaffirms that the worrying violent crime increase that began in 2015 after many years of decline was not an isolated incident.”
I know why. You suspect it as well. It’s called “proactive” vs “reactive” police philosophies. You can only yell “over-policed” at law enforcement for so long before they take you up on the demand to reduce.
All that said, why are so many persons caving to what appears to be protests based in ignorance (Black Lives Matter itself was created behind the falsehood of “hands up don’t shoot)?
Easy. The NFL is a business. And as a business Roger Goodell and the NFL team owners realize that the NFL is 70% black. Not a shocking statistic. What this means is that the NFL itself fears its players — more protests, possible walkouts, etc. — more than it fears you, the purchasing and attending public. You’ll come back. You always have. You always will.
The NFL is, literally, counting on it.
Despite what Leftists and anarchists are pushing, this is at least for the time being, a free country.
Players — as long as there are no contractual conflicts, as with the Dallas Cowboys — are free to take a knee and refuse to attend the national anthem all they wish.
The owners are free to support their players.
Roger Goodell is free to support all the players who take knees or refuse to attend the national anthem wholesale.
Just as I am free to write this post. I am free to not just disagree but disagree vehemently.
I am free to stop watching the NFL and ESPN.
I am free to cut the cord to cable companies who still make me pay for channels that go against my views, such as anything having to do with Disney, ESPN, CNN, CNBC, MSNBC, CNN Headline News, Comcast, CBS, et al.
And I am free to publish all this information far and wide on social media, on the blog and on the air at SHR Media.com.
We are all free. For the time being.
Do as you wish, NFL. I shall do as I wish.
Tomi Lahren nails it.
But even so, the bottom line is this: it’s not about the NFL. It’s not about ratings. It’s not about attendance or ticket sales or viewers. It’s something much larger.
First question that came to my mind: how long will it be before sports and other entities decide that it’s simply too controversial to even play the national anthem at all?
I value honesty and clarity. So let’s be honest and clear. We know why this occurs in the NFL and why it is not only accepted but in many ways encouraged. It occurs via GOWPs and guilt.
Attacks on whites & our national heritage are no passing fad. It’ll only get worse as whites become a minority due to immigration#TakeAKneepic.twitter.com/Zvu1UfEPZN
I have said and will continue to say: “no one is equal until everyone is equal.”
And even then, the picture is so much, much larger. It’s about the total dismantling of this nation, the removal of our current Constitution and Bill of Rights via the installation of the Cloward-Piven Strategy, and its subsequent rebuilding by Leftists and anarchists.
Featuring Right thinking from a left brain, doing the job the American Media Maggots won’t, embracing ubiquitous, sagacious perspicacity and broadcasting behind enemy lines in Occupied Fornicalia from the veritable Belly of the Beast, the Bill Mill in Sacramento, Fornicalia, I continue to proffer my thanks to the SHR Media Network for allowing me to utilize their studio and hijack their air twice weekly, Tuesdays and Thursdays, thanks to my shameless contract, as well as appear on the Sack Heads Radio Show each Wednesday evening.
Tuesday’s show featured Dan Butcher of High Plains Pundit fame and media magnate extraordinaire, who weighed in on an odd poll I found on CampusReform.org (a great place to find the newest manner of Leftist campus insanity unchained) as well as various Constitutional issues.
If you care to watch the show on YouTube, please click on start.
Next Thursday we’ll be speaking to The Underground Professor, Dr Michael Jones, about Constitutional issues and — a grand surprise — a member of the band Possessed Tranquility, the group that composed and recorded my intro song to this very radio show!
Please join me, the Bloviating Zeppelin(on Twitter @BZep and on Gab.ai @BZep), every Tuesday and Thursday night on the SHR Media Network from 11 PM to 1 AM Eastern and 8 PM to 10 PM Pacific, at the Berserk Bobcat Saloon — where the speech is free but the drinks are not.
As ever, thank you so kindly for listening, commenting, and interacting in the chat room or listening later via podcast.
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I think I’m starting to see a pattern here.
Featuring Right thinking from a left brain, doing the job the American Media Maggots won’t, embracing ubiquitous, sagacious perspicacity and broadcasting behind enemy lines in Occupied Fornicalia from the veritable Belly of the Beast, the Bill Mill in Sacramento, Fornicalia, I continue to proffer my thanks to the 
You just drew your final line with me, National Football League.
Then there is this, 
Standing. One man. Hand over heart.
As far as the NFL is concerned — just like Hillary Rodham Clinton — it doesn’t have a problem. Everyone else has the problem. It’s everyone else’s fault but theirs.
So what is this really about? You should ask the question and all the involved players should ask the question. Is it about this loose word “unity” as some are insisting? Unity in what, specifically? Unity in terms of only what those on the Left are advocating?
Featuring Right thinking from a left brain, doing the job the American Media Maggots won’t, embracing ubiquitous, sagacious perspicacity and broadcasting behind enemy lines in Occupied Fornicalia from the veritable Belly of the Beast, the Bill Mill in Sacramento, Fornicalia, I continue to proffer my thanks to the 
Please join me, the