Monthly Archives: December 2015

The Year In Irresponsible Journalism – How the mainstream media helped perpetuate hoaxes, lies and false stories

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To be sure, 2015 was another landmark year for journalism. Although it died several years prior when journalists and reporters failed to properly vet Barack Hussein Obama when he initially ran for President of the United States in 2008, the mainstream media continues to perpetuate lies, untruths and false stories about anything that threatens their liberal, leftist narrative, often about issues having to do with race.

Last year’s biggest journalistic debacle occurred in August 2014 when the infamous case of Michael Brown emerged and the media hit an all-time low. In case you were in a coma at that time, Michael Brown was an 18-year-old, over 300-pound black male who robbed a convenience store and assaulted its owner. Shortly after doing so Darren Wilson, a white Ferguson, Missouri police officer, encountered Brown and his friend walking in the middle of a Ferguson neighborhood street. When Wilson drove by, he told them to not walk in the middle of the street. Noticing that Brown fit a description of a person complained about in a call regarding the earlier assault at the convenience store, Officer Wilson asked him to approach his car. When he did, Brown reached inside and tried to grab Wilson’s weapon. In the scuffle the firearm discharged and Brown retreated down the street. After an apparent adrenaline surge, he then changed direction and proceeded to charge toward Officer Wilson who was forced to shoot Michael Brown.

The media managed to take false reports from standers-by who were more than eager to brand the white officer and the entire Ferguson police force as racist. The popular slogan “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” was originated via one eye witness who gave not only a misleading but an outright false account of the fatal incident. The media ran with it because 1) it sounded good, and 2) it fit their leftist narrative. Although a thorough investigation disproved it, the media continued to perpetuate that lie. Fortunately, Officer Wilson was exonerated and not forced to stand trial.

This year was filled with more stories with anti-police narratives. One of them had to do with the arrest of a 25-year-old black man named Freddie Gray, who was stopped outside a housing project on Baltimore’s west side following a foot chase when Gray fled from police. Officers had to drag him to the paddy wagon because he was being so uncooperative. Once they finally managed to put him in the back of the van they failed to put the seatbelt on him. Accusations were made that they intentionally did that in order to take him for a “rough ride.” After Gray was brought to the station, he was taken into medical custody and died a week later from a spinal cord injury. However, it has not been proven that his death was caused by an alleged rough ride in a police vehicle or from other circumstances the Baltimore Police were responsible for.

No matter, State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby rushed to judgment and pressed charges against six Baltimore police officers, including Officer William Porter, the first officer to stand trial. Mosby is embroiled in a conflict of interest due to her husband’s position on the West Baltimore city council and for her political relationship with an attorney representing the Gray family. Fortunately, just recently, Officer Porter’s case was declared a mistrial as the jury was deadlocked on the charges against him.

In another spillover story from late 2014, actress, writer and director Lena Dunham in her memoir used and accused a prominent college Republican named Barry of “raping” her one night while attending Oberlin College around 2005. In her book she gives details of Barry’s appearance and personality as well as the name of a talk show he hosts. But upon investigation after investigation these details failed to surface. There was a student named Barry who attended Oberlin at the same time as Dunham, and he was a prominent Republican on campus, but the details she gave just didn’t match Barry at all.

Initially, the media wrote stories about this incident as they gushed over Dunham for her courage, but later were forced to retract their reporting since the whole thing was a fraud.

A very notable story this year, one that the media fell head over heels for, was about a young Muslim boy named Ahmed Mohamed, aka Clock Boy. Clock Boy was a student at MacArthur High School in Irving, Texas who brought a home-made clock, which looked like a bomb a terrorist would have made, into his classroom. A rightfully concerned teacher alerted the school administration because, well, the thing looked like a bomb. When it was discovered that it was actually a clock that looked like a bomb, the teacher and administration apologized for the “confusion.” But an apology was not enough for some and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) was brought in by the family to exacerbate the situation and blow it way out of proportion.

The fact that the clock looked like a bomb was reasonably suspicious enough for the school officials to react the way they did, but somehow that was seen as Islamophobic, which is a cardinal sin to the left. Ahmed and his family should have been severely questioned and investigated by top authorities such as the FBI, but CAIR helped turn this into a circus eventually leading to a $15 million dollar lawsuit. It turns out that Ahmed’s father Mohamed ElHassan Mohamed is an activist against Islamophobia and the instigator of similar stunts designed to create controversy. However, the media scarcely reported on that truth, but instead hailed Ahmed as some kind of courageous hero.

How about the media’s handling of Hillary Clinton’s testimony at the House committee hearing regarding her emails and the Benghazi incident which should have happened years earlier? Listening to the mainstream media reports, one would think she just endured 11 hours of verbal torture by the committee. In reality she was asked poignant questions from Republican committee members whose objective it was to get to the truth of what happened. However, from Democratic committee members she was gushed over and praised for being a strong female Secretary of State who made important decisions under harsh conditions. Those same Democrats and others claimed that nothing was learned from this hearing and saw it as a charade from Republicans, another “vast right-wing conspiracy” if you will.

Despite what Democratic committee members say, we did learn a thing or two about Hillary Clinton’s role in the Benghazi incident on September 11, 2012, when four Americans were killed under her watch, including Ambassador Christopher Stephens. She still refuses to take responsibility for her actions and her partisan colleagues have no problem giving her a pass. While they accuse Republicans of being partisan, they are the ones being partisan. They complain about this investigation costing $4.7 million. Since when has money mattered to Democratic politicians when they have no problem spending $500 million for Planned Parenthood to perform abortions and harvest baby parts?

Toward the end of 2015, we were treated to stories upon stories of racism at the University of Missouri, among other campuses. However, at University of Missouri there had been no hard evidence that the campus was riddled in racism and that University President Tim Wolfe didn’t do anything about it. There were false stories circulating about feces smeared on a wall in the form of a swastika but in this age of technology where virtually every student has a cell phone with a camera, not one photo emerged to prove this claim. Nor was there any proof that someone yelled the N-word at a black student there, as was claimed. It could have happened, but how is that President Wolfe’s fault?

Ironically, as the media were writing stories on how racist this campus was, Black Lives Matter groups such as one called Concerned Students 1950 were setting up “safe spaces” for themselves and banning the media from entering. How’s that for respecting others’ First Amendment rights?

Finally, the media failed to report as ridiculous the claim that “climate change” is the cause of terrorism and the reason groups like ISIS are raping women, torturing and beheading Christians, and even killing other Muslims. Democratic candidate for US President in 2016 and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders has made this laughable claim. Even more egregious, perhaps, is the fact that in the wake of the Paris, France terrorist bombings in late November, at the G-20 summit on “climate change” in Antalya, Turkey, President Obama didn’t feel the need to change or adapt to an effective strategy for dealing with ISIS when asked about it. It seems that the importance of dealing with “climate change” is what is really important to him. Dealing with ISIS? Eradicating terrorism? Pressing other countries to join a coalition to combat global terrorism? No, global climate change seems to be the real threat according to Obama.

With reporting like this, who needs the mainstream media? Thank God there are the internet, citizen journalism and an alternative media.

 

Tom Folden is a political strategist, conservative author, and Editor-at-Large of RightWingWriter.com, a website for conservative viewpoints. An original member of the Tea Party, he takes part in pro-America rallies when his time permits. He is also a singer/songwriter and recording artist. For interviews and/or appearances, please contact him at spencergroup@Hotmail.com.

Show Me The Racism

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By now we have all heard about the cries of racism at several universities across America. This latest wave started with an accusation at the University of Missouri where the student government president made the allegation that a white student yelled the n-word. Another allegation was made that a swastika using human feces was drawn somewhere on campus, although there was zero proof and no evidence to support that claim. With all the cameras that come standard on even the cheapest cell phones, surely there should be multiple photos proving this incident occurred, right? Well, there were none and this accusation should have been laughed right out of the administration’s office and off campus. But it wasn’t.

With an air of epidemic racism concocted on campus, a student by the name of Jonathan Butler, whose parents’ net income is around the $40 million-per-year range, then staged a hunger strike in protest of all this unproven racism. Backed by most of the Mizzou football team, a campus group which calls itself Concerned Student 1950 created a list of ridiculous demands including University President Tim Wolfe’s resignation. They then proceeded to take over the campus quad area and carve out a “safe space” reserved only for black students. Wolfe, presumably, was targeted because he hadn’t done anything about the perceived racism. But he shouldn’t have had to since there was no evidence of any.

At Claremont-McKenna College in Pomona, California, dean of students Mary Spellman resigned under pressure from a group of activists who had protested on issues of campus diversity. In one incident, Casey Garcelon had become so offended at a few students’ Halloween costumes and posted photos of them on a Facebook page. The photos showed some students wearing costumes deemed insensitive to the Mexican culture. It very well may be that only one person, Casey Garcelon, was offended, causing her to post the photos, resulting in others jumping onto a bandwagon of racial protests, which happens to be chic on college campuses as of late. However, being offensive is subjective. It’s possible that those donning the “offensive” costumes had no intention of being offensive at all. This is a lesson Garcelon should learn.

At Occidental College in Eagle Rock, California, students took over a part of a campus building and issued their own list of ridiculous demands such as President Jonathan Veitch’s immediate resignation and the removal of the Los Angeles Police Department from campus.

It begs the questions, why are students allowed to overrun the faculty and parts of campus? And since when do students get to make demands? Even more disgraceful is the fact that some professors joined forces with the students, as in the case at Mizzou. Many professors want desperately to be seen as relevant or liked that they are willing to compromise their careers by looking like foolish activists.

Students have a right to have their issues addressed and can present their cases to their respective administrations. The administrations can then 1) explain to the students what steps they will take to rectify the situation, or 2) agree to work together toward a solution, or 3.) explain to the students why their grievances make no sense and warn them that any civil disobedience by students will result in harsh penalties not favorable to them.

If students still decide to defy the administrations after such warnings, they can expect to be suspended or even expelled. Surely the organizers of the protests should be expelled. Students are at school to study, not to be offended. Certainly students can protest but there are limits and guidelines to follow.

The University of Missouri football players who took part in their protests should have had their privilege of playing on a football team revoked, as well as their scholarships.

Professors, on the other hand, who take part in protesting with unruly students, effectively shirking their own responsibilities to be in class teaching, should receive immediate discipline. They should be dismissed and it should be documented on their permanent records making it nearly impossible for them to ever teach again. The problem is that most liberal professors will probably hop on over to their next favorite liberal university where they will undoubtedly be welcomed with open arms.

University of Missouri President Tim Wolfe should have stood up to the protesters and refused to step down. Further, he should have admonished their unruly behavior. Dean Mary Spellman from Claremont-McKenna College had already apologized for the way she had communicated to a small group of students. She should have explained to the students that there is a right way and a wrong way to deal with diversity in the real world. She should not have stepped down. President Jonathan Veitch at Occidental College should have had the LAPD forcibly remove all the protestors who took part in the unlawful activity at that campus. He should have made an affirmation that he would not be intimidated and not comply to their asinine list of demands. He, too, should not have resigned.

Unfortunately, those administrators caved in to the demands of the students and allowed them to overrun their campuses and administrations. It was a show of extreme weakness on the part of those school officials. The students got their way and academia has suffered because of it. This is what has happened to many of America’s universities.

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Tom Folden is a conservative author, patriot and Editor-in-Chief of RightWingWriter.com, a website for conservative viewpoints. An original member of the Tea Party, he takes part in pro-America rallies when his time permits. He is also a singer/songwriter and recording artist. For interviews and/or appearances, please contact him at spencergroup@Hotmail.com.