And Nothing but the Truth

http://www.billoreilly.com/newslettercolumn?pid=44180
By: BillOReilly.com Staff
Thursday, December 4, 2014

The truth is supposed to matter. We've all had that drilled into us since we were tykes, it's what we tell our own children and grandchildren.

But in 2014 America the truth is getting pummeled on a daily basis. We just endured an ugly episode that severely damaged race relations and still has America on edge. It was largely based on a lie told by a serial liar. 

Dorian Johnson was hanging with Michael Brown that day in Ferguson when the duo robbed a convenience store and got into the confrontation with Officer Darren Wilson. It was Johnson, who had previously been convicted for lying to the police, who claimed Brown had his hands in the air. Thus began the 'Hands Up, Don't Shoot" mantra.

That lie is still being promulgated by National Football League players and, far more shamefully, by members of Congress. 

This week at least four U.S. representatives took to the House floor and made the "Hands Up, Don't Shoot" gesture, even though they have to know it is almost certainly false. The lie has become a symbol, according to Texas Representative Al Green. But even symbolism should be based on fact, not on a fable.

There are a couple of other stories brewing right now that could use an injection of truth serum.

In St. Louis, just a few miles from Ferguson, four black and Hispanic teens bludgeoned a white man to death with hammers last weekend. 

It was a ruthless, barbaric crime, but St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay immediately declared that it had nothing to do with Ferguson, and that race was definitely not a factor. Is that the truth, the whole truth? How does Mayor Slay know, and why the rush to judgment?

Imagine a pack of four white teens brutally killing a black man with hammers. Would the mayor be so quick to assure us that it was just a random act, and would you have heard about the murder in the mainstream media? In this case, there have been few mentions of the crime in the national press.

By choosing which stories are inconvenient and must be ignored, the mainstream media lie to us every day.

Then there is the gruesome story out of the University of Virginia. Sabrina Rubin Erdely, writing in Rolling Stone, chronicles an awful gang rape allegedly perpetrated by seven young men who were pledging a fraternity.

The story relies heavily on a single source, the alleged victim, identified only as Jackie. If this went all went down the way it is alleged, Jackie was brutalized, raped, and tortured for hours by savages who should spend decades be behind bars.

The question is, does the Rolling Stone story hold up? It has come under fire in publications left and right, among them the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and Los Angeles Times.

Sabrina Rubin Erdely may be a truth-teller who is paying a price for a long line of lying "journalists." Stephen Glass, Jayson Blair, Janet Cooke, and Rigoberta Menchu are just a few writers who put glory and potential Pulitzers ahead of the truth.

The stories those liars told, in addition to being false, shared another distinction. In nearly every case the fabrication verified some bias that would not be uncommon among secular progressives.

Remember the Duke lacrosse hoax, and how eager the media and professors were to condemn the white frat boys who assaulted a poor black stripper? The young men were exonerated, the lying stripper is now in jail after being convicted of a subsequent murder.

The UVA story also reinforces the worst stereotypes about fraternities and college males in general. Again, if the story holds up the assailants should rot in jail.

But if it is false, either Jackie or Ms. Erdely engaged in an appalling fraud, much like Dorian Johnson.

Some ideologues insist that the article, even if not entirely true, is important because it shines a spotlight on campus rape.

The feminist website Jezebel lauds the piece for opening a "much needed public conversation" and says skeptics "have no idea what they're talking about." And a New Republic writer worries that if Erdely's story falls apart, we "will all be allowed to happily forget" that there are real rapes on college campuses.

The implication is that the message matters more than the truth.

But the truth is always paramount, whether a story involves Tawana Brawley, Jonathan Gruber, Michael Brown, or Jackie.

The Bible is not popular reading material for many of our secular progressive elites. But they might consider a simple adage found in the New Testament: "The truth shall make you free." 

                             http://biblehub.com/kjv/john/8.htm

Whether or not you believe Jesus was the Son of God, those words of his should be taken as the truth. The gospel truth.

Guns and Ferguson

I received this email today from a friend.

He makes a point I have always agreed with.  If the government takes your 2nd amendment rights away, you are going to be screwed.

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Looters in Ferguson, Mo., were met with little or no police resistance Friday night and store owners were forced to protect their businesses with their own guns.   One store owner said on the first night of the protesting, "There are no police here. We trusted the police to keep it peaceful, but they didn't do their job."   This is fact… real history, and should be sent to every home in America. Sadly most won’t forward this message and many people will quickly delete it, and run and hide from the message contained here.   In essence, they are surrendering to mob rule, thieves and murderers, who turn out in times of trouble to break into stores; steal, burn, and destroy the property of innocent people.   Often, the police hide or watch from a distance; sometimes because they are out-numbered or would be criticized for police brutality if they interfered, and could even be sued if one of these low-life criminals would be injured by them.   Dozens of businesses along West Florissant Ave. in Ferguson , Missouri were ransacked and robbed by rioters, including Target, Dollar General, Wal-Mart, liquor stores, automotive stores and a QuikTrip was burned down.     Hundreds of business owners and their employees had to run and hide in terror as waves of rioters arrived; some with guns.     MANY HIDE THEIR FACES.               Cleanup by shop owners in the aftermath! But not everyone cowered in fear… some took action!   History shows us that those who are armed and protecting their homes or businesses cause the thieves to seek easier targets for their violence and theft.   Some businesses in the Ferguson riots escaped looting.   Why these businesses avoided destruction of their property and saved their livelihood should be a lesson for politicians.   Some business owners with their employees and friends stood firm, right outside their establishments, ready to take on all comers.   Why?  Because they were armed to the teeth!   At Riverfront Tattoo and the adjacent gun store, owners Mike Gutierrez (below left) and Adam Weinstein (third from left) brought AR-15s, body armor and lots of high-capacity magazines (the type Obama wants banned) to guard their store against bedlam.     Rioters passed right by the store.  Mally’s Supermarket was protected by armed men and it was untouched.     As was Sam’s Meat Market.   And a beauty supply store owned by Asians.   No looting or damage to any of these businesses.  Do you wonder why!  And the lesson for politicians and all liberal gun-grabbing Democrats is that being armed — and armed to the teeth — is the ONLY defense against a rioting mob.  The lesson should have been learned for good after the 1992 L.A. Riots, when only shop owners in Koreatown were spared because they defended their stores with force of arms: The right to bear arms must be sacred!   The shop owners and people in these examples worked hard for the life they have. To deny them of the best tools possible to protect themselves and their property is criminal.

 

Wilson and Brown

When I read this, the following questions and thoughts come to me.

Either Wilson is a liar and his testimony is made up to protect himself . . .

or

Brown is a very angry black man,
who just robbed a store,
and is in some misconstrued way, trying to escape an arrest,
and because he was stoned, and because he was supposed to be going to college,
he knew arrest would endanger all of that,
and he fully believed Wilson would take no action.

Why would Brown think Wilson wouldn't take action?
Being a very big man, he must have had many previous experiences where his size alone intimidated others to back down, as the store manager did where Brown had just stolen the cigars.

I can't answer these questions and I bet you the Grand Jury couldn't either.
So all these 12 people could do was to examine the evidence presented,
and see if any of it could "stick" to one of the 5 charges brought.
This is our system at work.

Binge Watching

Wikipedia says, "Binge-watching, also called binge-viewing, is the practice of watching television for longer time spans than usual, usually of a single television show.  In a survey conducted by Netflix in February 2014, 73% of people define binge-watching as “watching between 2-6 episodes of the same TV show in one sitting.”   Binge-watching as an observed cultural phenomenon has become popular with the rise of online media services such as Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime with which the viewer can watch television shows and movies on-demand."

I am a binge watcher and I like it.  For instance, I am very much interested in the program Gotham.  From the few snippets I have seen of this, it appears to be worth my time, which I value greatly.  Hence, I will binge watch instead of cable watch with all the planning and scheduling it will take to watch it as it is broadcast.  My Mondays, right now at least, are devoted to football.  

Now of course that forces me to be very attentive and very careful not to read or see any plot revelations.  I don't find this too hard to do thankfully.  And even if and when I do get a peak at the plot, it usually isn't a total spoiler.

My first experience with binge watching came with that perfect program, Breaking Bad.

I knew the story line before I watched any of it, and even knew some of the things the characters were doing, had done, before I first watched.  Yet neither of these things kept me from enjoying the program.  The acting was still excellent and the dialog amazing, even though I was aware of "what was coming next."

I also binge watched Sherlock with it's great cast and story line.

And I can't mention binge watching without listing House of Card.

I put Trued Detective, 

and Justified into the mix as well.

And binge watching isn't just for current shows.  Several older multi-seasonal programs are worth a binge, like West Wing,

 Twin Peaks, 

and Lost.

Some of the current programming I plan to put on my binge watch list are Penny Dreadful,

The Blacklist, 

Louie,

and maybe even Cosmos, though I usually save my "educational" program from elsewhere.

We have all this wonderful entertainment value because of the internet and what it does.

HBO Go, Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, the sports channels, and now even some of the "main stream" programmers are figuring this out.  

So what have you binged watched and why?  What's on your list?

Minorities and the thug life.

Minorities and the thug life.

In this article, http://www.addictinginfo.org/2014/11/07/geraldo-rivera-tells-fox-news-minorities-fail-because-of-their-thug-ethic-video/ there are too many generalizations.  And it is sad that is what we do as individuals and as a society.

We see one person or one group dress, act, or do something and we just assume they all do.  Of course this isn’t new.  Our forefathers did the same thing with the Indians.  One group killed and scalped settlers so all Indians are the same.

We know this isn’t true, but we don’t seem to want to stop making generalizations.  And I attribute this to the federal government’s insistence on involving itself with every aspect of our lives.  They can’t address individual needs so everyone and their problems, and the government’s “solution” is generalized.  

Sally Raskoff says, "we generalize about people so that we know how to interact with them. If we see someone in a mail carrier’s clothing, we assume they work for the post office. If we see someone who looks over 80 years old, we assume they are not in the workforce anymore."

And so when you see a young black youth dressed with certain clothes in a certain style, or a religious person with certain clothing or jewelry, without conscious thought we make assumptions and lump that individual into a group and that person now has all the attributes and behavior of that group.  We are very good at stereotyping people within the first few seconds of seeing, hearing, or talking to them.  

We do this based on "how they look in terms of sexual orientation, gender, race, and ethnicity. We look at people and may assume they have a certain sexual orientation or that their gender is either man or woman.  We may assume they are white, African American, Native American, Asian American, or Latino." says Sally Raskoff. 

Of course we don't see the same thing in ourselves. We may go to the same church but not be like the deacon's family at all.  We may work in the same office building with hundreds of other be we are not exactly like any of them.  We boil the entire process down to a them vs us scenario.  "They" act, dress, speak a certain way so "they" are all like that.  "We" don't.   Without thought or consideration we continue this bias.

There is a good read on the historical problem of this and you can read it here.  http://understandingsociety.blogspot.com/2009/05/generalizations-in-history.html

If You Really Think It Matters Which Party Controls the Senate, Answer These Questions

I made these comments in a previous post concerning our new Congress.

Here are the top three things I want to see happen, and please dear gawd don't let these just be dreams.

1.  required Voter ID for registering to vote as well as for actually voting.

2.  an open vote, meaning no party affiliation required and anybody can be placed on the ballot and/or you can write in a name, and NONE OF THE ABOVE, is a choice

3.  repeal of Citizen's United, PACs, or any other kind of financial donation to any candidate from any entity other than an individual registered voter, and not to exceed $5

I have other wishes, such as securing the border, how "appointees" like Czars, and Cabinet staff workers are made, and work days and hours and other benefits of Congressmen.

And today, Tyler Durden asked . . . 

If You Really Think It Matters Which Party Controls the Senate, Answer These Questions

So here are his questions, and my answers.

1. Will U.S. foreign policy in the Mideast change from being an incoherent pastiche of endless war and Imperial meddling?   

NO it won't.  The biggest problem with our foreign policy (besides our foreign policy itself) and the MidEast, is who we send over there to begin with.  In the past it was Rice and Clinton.  The MidEast powers that be, though cordial and polite, don't negotiate with women, because they don't see women as equals.  In fact they think we are chattel, whether American or Middle Eastern.  And based upon Kerry's results, they think he is a women too.

2. Will basic civil liberties be returned to the citizenry?

Our civil liberties are a joke to most law enforcement.  The average cop on the beat is unaware of what they are or care what they are.  Our federal agencies break the laws and rights contained in the  Bill of Rights and the Constitution, and then tell us to prove they were wrong.  You would be lucky to have an attorney or judge uphold them as well.  

3. Will the predatory, parasitic policies of the Federal Reserve that virtually everyone from the Wall Street Journal to what little remains of the authentic Left understands has greatly increased income and wealth inequality be reined in? 

The puppet masters in the Federal Reserve own your representatives.  Don't hold your breath for any changes here to be made by your "elected" puppets. 

4. Will the steaming pile of profiteering, corruption, waste, fraud and ineptitude that is Sickcare in the U.S. be truly reformed so its costs drop by 50% to match what every other developed democracy spends per person on universal healthcare? 

The repeal of Obamacare will not happen.  Big Medicine and Big Pharma own your representatives too.  There will be much talk but no action.  Costs will continue to rise and pills will be dispensed left and right and disease will spread and the powers that be will use it to spread fear worldwide and control the sheeple.  

5. Will the influence of Big Money be well and truly banned from politics? 

This was his answer and I can't improve upon it.  

If you answer yes, please pick up your tin-foil hat at the door.

6. Will the incentives in the Status Quo be reset to punish rapacious financialization and gaming the system and reward productive investment and labor? 

The Big Banks have no morals. Greed is the operating force here and I don't see anyone in Washington changing anything.  They yanked back all the power we had to stop their insider trading by revoking the Stock Act.  Labor unions payoff whomever is required to be dealt with. They are all in it for the money, too. 

7. Will anything be done to dismantle the Neofeudal Debt-Serfdom known as student loans? 

The DC crowd has no incentive to help out students with debt when they depend on that debt to service their machine.  They want students learning what they teach and paying them for that privilege.  Degrees for higher education are not worth the paper they are printed on.  

8. Will any prudent assessment be made of unaffordable weapons systems like the F-35 Lightning--$1.5 trillion and counting for aircraft that will soon be matched by drones that cost a fraction of the F-35's $200 million a piece price tag?  

The industrial war machine has no incentive what-so-ever, and neither do the pigs at their trough, to change this profitable system.  It's war, war, and more war. 

There is so much that needs to be changed, and we haven't even touched on immigration.  Sigh!!!!

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