Posts Tagged media
Duke Lacrosse Team Rape Accuser Commits Hate Crime & Mike Nifong Hates Fundamental Unfairness of Truth
Posted by Lance Haley in Cultural Issues, Ethics, Media & Communication, Politics, Race, crime on February 18th, 2010
Duke Lacrosse Team Prosecutor Mike Nifong - Complained of Fundamental Unfairness of Disbarment Proceedings While His Puppy Was Eating His Law License
Do you recall that ugly scandal involving players for the Duke University Lacrosse Team, where a stripper named Crystal Magnum – boy was Chris Rock ever right about keeping your daughter “off the pole” - accused several of the players of raping her at an off-campus team party?
Remember the over-zealous Prosecutor Mike Nifong making racially-incendiary insinuations that the alleged rape was a hate crime – all for political gain – along with his other voluminous ethical violations?
Of course, nothing was further from the truth. There was never any crime committed that night. Except, of course – and I sincerely apologize to Duke University for not defending your actions - there was that unthinkable crime of underage drinking by college boys. Oh, the horrors of it all . . . 
Earlier today, Crystal Magnum (did your mom really give you that name?) - that stripper who falsely accused those young white men of the rape – was arrested for allegedly beating the Hell out of her boyfriend, then throwing his clothes in bathtub and setting them on fire in an apartment. While being taken away by police officers, it was reported that she then yelled at the boyfriend, “I’m going to stab you [MotherF&%ker].”
She was charged with “first-degree attempted murder for communicating a threat” while in the presence of police officers, as well as five counts of arson, simple assault, identity theft, damage to property and resist, delay and obstruction of justice. Moreover, there may be three additional counts of child endangerment as a result of setting the fire in an apartment, presumably where the children were present.
All proving once again that she really hates men – black or white.
In a really twisted irony was Nifong’s response when confronted with news reports of Magnum’s arrest. Nifong told a reporter who called him in order to comment on the matter, that he doubted the truth of those reports since he believed media reports “to be of questionable value.”
I guess Nifong forgot about the fact that he didn’t hesitate to disseminate evidence of questionable value regarding DNA and other legal issues to the media during the Duke Lacrosse Team rape case.
Karma’s a bitch – literally and figuratively speaking - ain’t it Mike?
The Battle of Tora Bora, Afghanistan in 2001 – the Ghost that Keeps on Haunting the U.S.
Posted by Lance Haley in Media & Communication, Uncategorized, War in Afghanistan, foreign policy on December 11th, 2009
Where is the outrage?!?
If this blogs’ coverage of what happened in Tora Bora seems to be getting redundant, there will be no apologies. New information about the single worst foreign policy decision in American history is not something to sweep under the carpet when so many U.S. military soldiers have sacrificed their lives because of this blunder. The American press can ignore this . . . I refuse to let this go until someone is finally taken to the proverbial woodshed over this disaster.
And the hits on Dick Cheney’s credibility just keep on getting handed out on a silver platter . . .
Finally, after eight long years, somebody finally affirms what I have been saying all that time. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, U.S. commander of forces in Afghanistan, and the man who “urged the surge” that President Obama just accommodated, testified before Congress this week, stating that capturing Osama bin Laden is the lynchpin to defeating the al – Qaida terror network.
OK, one more time. Remember, Bush stood on the smouldering ruins of the World Trade Center on 9/12, proclaiming through his bullhorn that ”the men who brought down these towers would be brought to justice”, and days later said he “wanted bin Laden, dead or alive.” Yet, it was Bush’s own Secretary of Defense – Donald Rumsfeld – who created the strategy that enabled bin Laden to escape from Tora Bora in December 2001.
Dick Cheney later downplayed the importance of capturing bin Laden in 2006, and his own outgoing Army Chief of Staff at the Pentagon, Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, echoed that same sentiment in 2007, stating that “I don’t know that it’s all that important, frankly.” It should be noted that Shoomaker was previously the head of U.S. Special Operations Command – the unit that was searching for the previous six years for bin Laden after he escaped into the mountains between Afghanistan and Pakistan in the Battle of Tora Bora. They never found him.
Finally, the biggest indictment of the failure of these men, and a rebuke of these impotent attempts to veil their incompetence by dismissing the primary objective of the U.S. military in Afghanistan , is the report by the U.S. Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee. Before you blame this current Adminstration for ANYTHING that occurs in Afghanistan – have a nice fat plate of crow.
The War in Afghanistan could have been over – you know, “Mission Accomplished” – in December 2001. If it were not for so many lost U.S. lives, one could laugh at the irony. Now there will be more lives lost in pursuit of an objective that was within the grasp of our political and military leaders (I use the term loosely) eight years ago.
How pathetic and unconscionable.
Fire, Aim, Ready, Reporting . . . Tiger Woods’ Accident Reveals All That is Wrong With US!
Posted by Lance Haley in Cultural Issues, How and Why We Get Screwed, Media & Communication, Sports, Uncategorized on December 1st, 2009
The day after Thanksgiving I was on the golf course when my buddy’s phone rang. The news was disturbing, to say the least.
Another friend of ours was calling to tell us that Tiger Woods was involved in a bad car accident, that he had suffered severe head injuries, and that he was in the hospital in serious condition. Ten minutes later I received a phone call from my mother telling me the same thing. My thoughts immediately turned to his wife, children, and mother – what a horrible ordeal they must be suffering through. As golfers, we were discussing the ramifications of whether or not Tiger would be considered the greatest golfer of all time were he not able to return and beat Jack Nicklaus’ record of winning eighteen majors.
As it turns out, none of those concerns were even close to what really matters now to our culture of celebrity worship regarding this incident. As the holiday weekend bore on, and the story slowly evolved, it was apparent that Tiger was not seriously hurt and would return to golf. What was less apparent was whether or not the most cloistered and private super-athlete in history would weather the media frenzy over rumors that spread like wild-fire regarding his ostensible marital infidelity, why he was a bad driver that night, and why his wife used his driver to break the windows in his SUV.
What is most disturbing now is not Tiger’s injuries, but rather the injurious nature of celebrity culture worship to our society. We are deeply enmeshed in two wars that are both going to drag on for years to come, our country is in serious financial condition, robber barons and financial terrorists have looted the national treasury to further enrich themselves at our expense . . . and we are obsessed with whether or not Tiger Woods slept with some alleged celebrity gold-digger, and pissed off his wife?
Innuendo, allegations, and “verified sources” are the stuff of modern day ambush tabloid journalism. Moreover, these tales grows bigger with each newly released “fact”. When truth becomes a subordinate goal of reporting a story, reality is whatever the spinmakers ordain it to become.
For instance: Obama is a Kenyan because he has not provided a certified birth certificate demonstrating his American citizenship to the satisfaction of the people who claim he was born in Kenya? After the certified birth certificate is released by the state agency in Hawaii, elements of the media and public still deny it’s authenticity. So how do you prove something that is undeniably true, if the listener engages in “don’t confuse me with the facts, my mind is made up” rationale. After all, can’t you simply ignore those who will not believe that which is self-evident? Not in the age where truth is the first casualty of war.
If truth is so easily squandered away, how can we as a society expect to acheive greatness in the midst of an obsessive focus on the mundane and insignificant veiled under the guise of relevance and importance?
That should be what America is asking itself.
Same Old Wine in a Brand New Bottle . . .
Posted by Lance Haley in Business and Money, Campaigns, Capitalism, Congress, Conservatives, Economics, Government, Healthcare Reform, How and Why We Get Screwed, Lobbyists & Lobbying, Politics, Show Them the $$$, Uncategorized, Wealth Disparity & the Ultra Rich on October 6th, 2009
The tentacles of power reach as deeply into this Administration and Congress as they have with any of their predecessors (if you do not believe it, read this article).
Health Care Reform will be just another act of diluted legislative sausage-making, wherein they can all declare victory while their constituents are left wondering why there was so much fuss over so little substantive action. The polarized distinctions between Democrats and Republicans, Liberals and Conservatives, are just fabricated drama for the Beltway politicos, P.R. hacks, media, and the likes of Limbaugh and Beck, all who line their already deep pockets by stirring more fear and loathing in an easily manipulated public.
These Foxes are not the real threat to the occupants of the chicken coop. To the contrary. The chickens are so busy pecking at the ground looking for a kernel of corn or two to feed their hunger for a little truth, while simultaneously focusing on these untrustworthy creatures, that they forgot it is the master that will likely be dining again on them tonite.
If you keep your eye on the foxes, you will never see the freshly- sharpened axe that is about to fall on your neck.