Can we have that honest conversation about race? And what is the price of an accountable media?

Episode 297: That Honest Conversation / The Price of Media Accountability

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It's been a good run, but after 10 years, this show is done. I appreciate all my listeners on whatever point on the political spectrum you might be.

I have a few parting thoughts, some reminiscing, and of course some conservative commentary. But this show goes a bit over the usual 10 minutes because, hey, it is a special episode.

Episode 326: The End


A leak out of the Supreme Court suddenly made abortion and Roe v Wade the main topic of outrage from the Left.
But, aside from whether or not the opinion aligns with yours, what are the reasons that the Roe and Casey decisions should be overturned? Are there reasons (that are not religious ones or regarding morality) that those decisions don’t hold up legally?
Listen in to find out. As a bonus, I’ll read the introduction to the Alito opinion after the main show so you can some of his reasoning.
Mentioned links:
Supreme Court leak stuns nation
10 key passages from Alito’s draft opinion, which would overturn Roe v. Wade
Is Roe v. Wade About to Be Overturned? If So, What Are the Implications?
U.S. Supreme Court launches probe into leak of draft abortion opinion
Alito’s draft opinion [PDF]


Show transcript
A leaked draft of a Supreme Court opinion is completely unprecedented, and the content of the one leaked on the evening of May 2nd is remarkable in its own right. It appears, according to the opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito, that the Court is prepared to overturn Roe v Wade because it was poorly decided. That’s something that lawyers from both sides of the aisle have agreed with over the years. Inventing a constitutional right to abortion out of whole cloth is what the Court did, overriding the laws of every state and basically legislating from the bench.
Some are suggesting that overturning Roe would be “undemocratic” and would “politicize the Court”. What they fail to realize is that Roe itself was undemocratic and was itself politicizing. The idea that the “right” to abortion was somehow actually in the Constitution is dishonest from the start. Even worse was the whole trimester setup and what was allowed at each step of the way. Was that in the Constitution? No, it was plain legislating, a power that the Court should never have. We have a legislative branch of government for that, and so that politized the Court. And there is nothing less democratic than a few Justices writing rules for the entire nation, overriding the laws of every state. Overturning Roe restores democracy and gets the Court out of the political realm. Removing the issue from edicts from on high and back to the people is what democracy is all about.
Apparently, that’s the last thing Democrats want; to give the people a vote. Fine then, pass a law through Congress where something like this, that lays out when certain procedures are allowed, is supposed to be created. That, too, is the democratic way, where our representatives make the laws, not a majority of a panel of 9 Justices.
But do you see what the Democrats want to do in order to get that passed? They want to use a misuse of the judicial branch of government and turn the Court into what’s been called a “super-legislature”; rather than merely deciding cases based on the text of the Constitution, they can additionally create laws out of thin air. This is an abuse of the process. But remember; live by the sword, die by the sword. Once you create a “law” in this manner, later on, when the court changes hands by the luck of what President gets to name the justices, you can easily see new laws, or removal of old laws, just as easily. And because these Justices have lifetime appointments, those “laws” will be just as hard to change.

Episode 325: Will Alito’s Leak Mean the End of the Roe?

One way newspapers push a particular narrative is mentioning the race of a perpetrator right up front or way in the back. Or not at all. A study was done looking at major newspaper articles going back 2 years and guess what they found. (You can probably guess, actually.)
There was quite a backlash to Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter. Thing is, it really brought out who really is for free speech and who isn’t.
Disney dipped it toe into the political waters, but it may be a bit to hot for them.
Mentioned links:
Yes, the Media Bury the Race of Murderers—If They’re Not White
Twitter employees go ‘absolutely insane’ after Elon Musk buys company
The Rising Storm Disney Can’t Wish Away

Show transcript
One thing that conservatives have had a feeling about is that the media are selective on what they consider national news stories. If the perpetrator is white, it seems they get more press than a person of color. It seems that the narrative is pushing the news.
Well, for now we don’t have any hard data on that, but the Washington Free Beacon has done the work to determine where in a story that the race of a murderer shows up. As an example, they note that the race of Frank James, who was responsible for the subway shootings on April 12th, was not mentioned at all in the coverage by the NY Times and Reuters. The Washington Post only mentioned James’s race in relation to his condemnation of training programs for “low-income Black youths.” The charge is that if he had been white, that would have never happened; race would have been prominent from the get-go.
But now there is hard evidence for that. The Free Beacon reviewed 1,100 articles published by 6 major newspapers over 2 years and found that indeed they downplay the race of non-white offenders. They have a graph in their article, linked to in the show notes, that show in which paragraph the race of the perpetrator was first mentioned. Here’s what they found.
Half of articles about a white offender mention his race within the first 15 percent of the article. In articles about black offenders, by contrast, mentions come overwhelmingly toward the end of the piece. Half of the articles that mention a black offender’s race do not do so until at least 60 percent of the way through, and more than 20 percent save it until the last fifth of the article.
And how about where the race was omitted? Well, the Free Beacon confirmed a murderer’s race from other sources and found out how often journalists skipped it.
Again, the skew is startling: White offenders’ race was mentioned in roughly 1 out of every 4 articles, compared with 1 in 17 articles about a black offender and 1 in 33 articles about a Hispanic offender.
There are more findings in the article, including how these stats changed after the death of George Floyd, which only serve to confirm the bias that conservatives have been confident existed in the media. The narrative is everything and if a news story doesn’t, as they say, confirm their priors, then it gets just the obligatory coverage and then memory-holed.
Oh, that liberal media. And yes, it is liberal.

Employees of a tech company reacted angrily when they found out that their company was to be bought by an African-American. That’s another way of reading the actual headline of a link in the show notes, “Twitter employees go ‘absolutely insane’ after Elon Musk buys company”. Yup, he did it, and it turns out that those employees are not all that hip on allowing speech that they disagree with.

Episode 324: Papers Push a Narrative / Elon Buys Twitter / Disney Goes Political

Biden seems to call for regime change in Russia. The media are starting to admit the Hunter Biden story was buried. The Florida Parental Rights in Education bill get smeared.

Episode 323: Ukraine War / Hunter Biden laptop / Florida Parental Rights bill

Sorry for the sound quality this time around. I haven’t unpacked the audio equipment yet from our move.
I thought we’d have some inflation after the lockdowns were over. However, the Biden administration has not been doing much too keep that under control.
I said that when a liberal restaurant owner kicked out a prominent Republican that it was wrong. Today I’m going on the record to say that when it happens on the Right it’s just as wrong. However, this time there is a funny turn of events.
Both Republicans and Democrats have been squishy on the issue of increasing the debt limit. Neither side has been better than the other. But that’s about to change.
Mentioned links:
The incredible, disappearing — incompetent — Team Biden
#EmptyShelvesJoe trending on Twitter amid Biden’s supply chain crisis
WaPo: Bread Lines Aren’t So Bad, Puny Citizens
Florida diner that forbids Biden supporters becomes so popular that it runs out of food
Episode 218: Blacklisted by a Red Hen / ACLU Cools to Civil Liberties / SCOTUS Rules Against Coerced Speech
Growing number of Democrats endorse abolishing debt limit altogether
‘Glorious karma’: Braves bring World Series to Atlanta after MLB pulls All-Star Game

Show transcript
Well it’s been some time since I talked to you. Let’s see what’s been happening.
Inflation has reared its ugly head. Now I will say this; after the shutdowns and lockdowns of 2020, I figured that all that pent-up demand would lead to a buying binge that would mean prices would rise, just like your Econ 101 teacher said they would. But the Biden administration hasn’t been doing such a good job at trying to mitigate it. Getting stuff into our ports has, apparently, been such a hassle for Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg that he’s been taking paternity leave since August. Ships with shipping containers of all kinds of stuff are hanging out waiting their turn to dock at ports on both coasts. This has driven inflation up more than it would have been otherwise. But I guess it doesn’t matter that the price is higher if you can’t buy it anyway. The hashtag #EmptyShelvesJoe was trending at one point complete with pictures of said shelves.
But the Washington Post, dutifully attempting to cover for a Democrat, tweeted this, “Don’t rant about short-staffed stores and supply chain woes. Try to lower expectations.” You see, we’re too used to being a first-world country. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain who’s paying people to stay at home, or whose incompetence at transportation and commerce is hitting us right in the supply chain. Just get over yourselves!
Does anyone think ideas like that would have been published in the Post if Donald Trump had been elected?

Back in 2018 in episode 218 I talked about how a restaurant, the Red Hen, refused to serve Sarah Huckabee-Sanders. I chided the restaurant for outright refusing to serve someone based on their political affiliation. And now I’m going to be consistent in that belief.
The DeBary Diner in DeBary,

Episode 297: That Honest Conversation / The Price of Media Accountability

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