He played up the whole patriotism thing, repeating “Thank you for your service” a few times, and then hit up veterans and their organizations. He regularly interviewed people on his show like retired Lt. Col. Buzz Patterson, military wives, homeland security supporters, as well as soldiers presently serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. As a veteran myself, I probably gave him the added credibility to go after a segment of our society respected and admired.

Apparently it required getting a traitor on board as well…

It appears he found his man.

Rick Senninger finally is getting what he deserves. But he wasn’t alone. He and his partner, Captain Trip Bellard, ran up a tab of nearly $50,000 at our facility doing the Troop Talk show. In the end, Trip Ballard just turned his back on us and walked away after personally promising to help us out. This past fall, Bellard acknowledged taking more than $2,000 out of the Hero Radio Network bank account and promised to send it to us. That hasn’t happened. His shirking of his responsibility and misleading us about his intent, shows how bad character can be contagious. Rick and Trip, another fine example of conservative values being jettisoned when one’s personal comfort and wallet are at stake.

Ray Hays
PRC Digital Media
Jacksonville, Florida

Texas-born, West Point grad, Captain Emory “Trip” Bellard appears to be one of Senninger’s partners in crime. Judging from the funding request that Trip posted on the Go Big networking site seeking $100k in start-up capital, his involvement and goals appear to mirror those of Senninger: target veterans and those who support and love them.

When the “Troop Talk” show floundered to its end, Bellard in an August 20, 2007 email to Hays, seemingly blamed his audience for their lack of patriotism and support…

I appreciate all that you have done in support of Troop Talk and bringing the voices of our American Patriots forward to our nation. It is my sincere opinion that our military is fighting around the clock to defend our freedoms, but our country has yet to awaken to the reality of the time and fully mobilize for war. This ambivalence is dangerous and irresponsible. As many of our Presidential Candidates and Congressional Leaders are discussing defeat and withdrawal, the enemy is looking for new ways to exploit our new found weakness. Any minor defeat on the battlefield is used as propaganda for recruiting new waves of terrorists, but a withdrawal from Iraq or any major front in this war on terror will embolden generations of radical Islamists to take up arms in the fight against the great Satan. It has been my honor to facilitate the message of our brave heroes as they fight on distant shores, but it is with great reservation that I must resign the opportunity afforded me in Troop Talk. This past Sunday was my last show. I will be in later today, but I wanted to prepare you for the decision that I have made.

Respectfully,
EMORY D. BELLARD III (TRIP)
West Point Class of 1999, “With Duty in Mind”
MIT Sloan Class of 2009, “mens et manus”

I’ve just received yet another email from a Marine presently stationed at Camp Pendelton who contributed to a respected veterans organization Senninger latched onto. Senninger later contacted this Marine and solicited $3000 cash from him.

If any of you reading this have been approached by, or have given money to Rick Senninger or Trip Bellard for any of their radio adventures and feel you have not received the services promised (and have any correspondence via the Internet), please file an complaint with the FBI’s IC3 (Internet Crime Complaint Center).

According to a Florida state attorney fraud investigator, Senninger also has bench warrants issued in Michigan for non payment of child support.

Senninger will be extradited to Michigan.

UPDATE

According to Marcia Lane of The St. Augustine Record,

A St. Augustine radio personality who has a nationally syndicated show is in the St. Johns County jail awaiting return to Michigan on a larceny charge, according to the St. Johns Sheriff’s Office.

Richard Senninger, 51, who is known on air as Rick Wright, anchors “Outside the Wire” on WFOY 1240 in St. Augustine. He wasn’t on the air Wednesday night and station owner Kristine Phillips said he “most definitely” isn’t going to be back on.

“He came to me two months ago with an impressive radio background. He was syndicated before and had sold that. He wanted to syndicate again, and he wondered if it could originate from WFOY,” Phillips said. The two made an arrangement, and Wright was renting time, not only out of the station but off a satellite.

Phillips said the St. Johns Sheriff’s Office told her of Wright’s arrest at his Palencia home around 1:45 p.m. and that he wouldn’t be on the air Wednesday.

She said Wright wasn’t going to be on the air anyway, because he had not paid his bills with her.

“Starting Monday I was really getting on him about getting up to date with his payments”, Phillips said, adding she had only known Wright a few months.

“I started getting calls from former colleagues who told me about not getting paid and his passing bad checks. So things had sort of come to a head with us,” she said, noting he owned her a “pretty substantial amount.” St. Johns County Sheriff’s spokesman Kevin Kelshaw said Senninger was picked up on a larceny by conversion charge out of Iosco County, Mich.

Gary Rapp, Iosco County prosecutor, confirmed the charge Wednesday saying the larceny by conversion charge was for “more than $1,000 and under $20,000.” Asked if Iosco County would be sending deputies to pick up Wright, Rapp said, “I would imagine that’s the intent.” Rapp said he didn’t know if there were any other bench warrants out on Wright since that would be a civil matter and his office only handles criminal cases.

Wright is being held at the local jail without bond and is expected to appear before a judge this morning.

Wright’s show is a conservative political broadcast that features several regular contributors.

According to info on the WFOY web site, Wright has 30 years broadcasting experience as a talk show host, TV executive producer, co-owner of several radio stations and founder of an advertising agency in central Florida. It says he “left his footprint hosting shows on stations in the Midwest and Florida.” I think people kind of liked Rick,” Phillips said, adding the show¹s time slot from 9 p.m. to midnight EST is late for AM listeners.

“It’s kind of an unusual time slot for AM, but he told me he had several affiliates on the West Coast. That would have been a 6-9 p.m. slot. That’s a probable time slot,” Phillips said.

Wright replaced The Jim Bohannon Show, which had an “extremely small but loyal following,” she said. Bohannon, she said, would be back.

Many in our entertainment intelligentsia consider prostitution a victimless crime, thus Ashley Alexandra “Kristen” Dupré’s activities are going to be her ticket to fame and fortune. She’s probably already received many offers from agents who know they can sell her name, face, “voice” and body. They know there will be interested parties waiting to exploit her newfound fame, or infamy depending how you look at it.

As usual with this generation, it’s all about her. On her MySpace page she wrote,

I am all about my music, and my music is all about me…. It flows from what I’ve been through, what I’ve seen and how I feel. I live in New York and am on top of the world.

Well, if she could make it there, she can make it anywhere.

Ashley Alexandra “Kristen” Dupré alludes to a broken home and abuse. If true, that is tragic. However, there are many other people who have survived broken homes and not turned to breaking the law. Prostitution IS against the law.

Granted, unlike Eliot Spitzer who gleefully put people in jail as New York’s attorney general and has no sympathy coming his way from the public, Ashley Alexandra “Kristen” Dupré may give community service a new name and will come out of this a rich woman. She may get a book deal, recording contract, or a modeling gig. She probably won’t be earning $4,300-an-hour, but she will be able to work, for the most part, standing up.

Personally, I’m hoping her name becomes a noun.

At some point, as a society we must stop showering praise and riches on people whose activities would have reaped much scorn in days gone by. Sure, we’re more “open-minded” and “progressive” today, and in this case, women wouldn’t be prostitutes if not for the John’s who bought their goods. But as this plays out, there is a political component that has yet to begin to unravel. You see, Ashley Alexandra “Kristen” Dupré helped bring down an obnoxious, arrogant, yet powerful Democrat.

Many news organizations exercised the ultimate restraint in not mentioning Eliot Spitzer’s party affiliation. Unlike Republican Senator David Vitter or Republican Congressman Mark Foley, whose exploits were used as a successful campaign theme and some credit for the recent Democrat takeover of the House and Senate, the mainstream media doesn’t want the Spitzer Scandal to have legs.

The problem is it does.

While Monica Lewinsky has faded into obscurity, thus allowing the American people to move on from all that we remember of the good ol’ Clinton years, Ashley Alexandra “Kristen” Dupré will milk her notoriety as long as she can, along with an eager entertainment industry. Every time we see her face, many of us will be reminded that the only reason we even know she exists is that she screwed the Governor of New York.

Ashley Alexandra “Kristen” Dupré’s mama can’t be proud of this moment. Maybe she is; you never know. But in our copycat society where oral sex a few years ago became cool, becoming a high-priced call girl may end up being a new road to fame. Ashley Alexandra “Kristen” Dupré didn’t work alone. Eliot Spitzer was probably not the only well-known client to frequent the service.

But before this is all over, there may well be a few more Ashley Alexandra “Kristen” Dupré’s. We will all look like saps trying to tell our kids crime doesn’t pay, while they reply it does… for upwards of five grand an hour.

Let us not forget, the next President of the United States will be dealing with adversaries overseas who are not impressed with “feelings” or “tears” that well up soccer moms and morning show anchorettes. Clinton gave us a teary-eyed reminder of his childhood memories of Black churches burning in Arkansas, even though it was later revealed that not one church, period, was burned in Arkansas during his manufactured recollections. Now Romney’s emotional recall was over Blacks being fully admitted to the Mormon church.

Romney’s tears won’t impress Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or Bashir Assad, and let’s not forget, they have televisions as well. Enough of the crying. Our enemies respect testosterone. They respect strength. Crying may warm the Ellen and Oprah audiences, but at a time when we’re looking for strong leaders, tears are the wrong approach.

Major League JuiceBall
In the aftermath of the release of the Mitchell Report on steroid use in Major League Baseball, instead of naming names, I blame money on what’s driving players to juice up for competitive advantage.

As a child, I remember going to Fenway Park to watch the Red Sox. I paid $1 to get a bleacher seat in right field and, for an additional fifty cents, after the seventh inning could find an empty seat in the grandstands. Those same bleacher seats today cost $26.

You knew who the players were, and many played out their entire career with one team. When free agency ran amok, it was all about the money. Screw the fans. When it became all about the money, players began to seek that edge; not necessarily to help their team, but their next big contract. The Mitchell Report, rightly or wrongly, named names.

Red Sox pitcher Curt Shilling put it best….

“I’m hoping to hear a very large legal team has been assembled and that Roger (Clemens) is suing everybody.

“If your name is there, there’s two ways to go about this. You legally defend yourself and sue the crap out of everybody involved or you don’t.”

It’s the “don’t” part that’s telling. The lawsuit silence is deafening, and knowing lawyers as we do, that says something….

Romessica
NFL quarterbacks are supposed to be the smartest people on the field. With that, they should be careful of the company they keep.

Many in Dallas are talking about the terrible play of Cowboys QB Tony Romo after he started dating singer Jessica “Chicken of the Sea” Simpson. She may not be welcome at Texas Stadium because many consider her bad news.

Many athletes date actresses and other pop celebrities and it doesn’t affect their play on the field. Now while Romo is a professional and should be able to partition his private life from his career, Jessica Simpson has done little positive for anyone she’s hung around.

Real men can appreciate intelligent women. I can only imagine Tony explaining to Jessica what a first down was, as she may have thought it the layaway policy at Target.

Tony, NFL quarterbacks can ill afford blonde moments. Jessica Simpson is a walking blonde moment. Watch your blind side.

Commercial Of The Week
The best in self-deprecating humor….

Priceless.

“Citizen Journalists” Are Not The Problem
Reading the self-aggrandizing commentary from David Hazinski, a former NBC correspondent, was almost comedic.In an op-ed written in the Atlanta Journal Constitution, Hazinski goes off on “citizen journalists” and dictates what he believes should be guidelines that they should adhere to.

He has both nerve and selective memory. As a former network correspondent and present associate professor of telecommunications and head of broadcast news at the University of Georgia’s Grady College of Journalism, he should know better.

He wrote….

“CNN’s last YouTube Republican debate included a question from a retired general who is on Hillary Clinton’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender steering committee. False Internet rumors about Sen. Barack Obama attending a radical Muslim school became so widespread that CNN and other news agencies did stories debunking the rumors. There are literally hundreds of Internet hoaxes and false reports passed off as true stories, tracked by sites such as snopes.com.”

The question was posed on YouTube, but whose responsibility was it to vet the question, Mr. Hazinski? Maybe the “certified”, trained professional at CNN.

“Following the debate, CNN learned that retired Brigadier Gen. Keith Kerr served on Clinton’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender steering committee. We regret this incident. CNN would not have used the general’s question had we known that he was connected to any presidential candidate.”
– David Bohman, senior vice president and executive producer of the debate

Surely as I could find that explanation, Mr. Hazinski, associate professor of telecommunications and head of broadcast news at the University of Georgia’s Grady College of Journalism, could have found that as well.

“Having just anyone produce widely distributed stories without control can have the reverse effect from what advocates intend. It’s just a matter of time before something like a faked Rodney King beating video appears on the air somewhere.”

There’s this great news organization called “The New York Times”. They previously employed a reporter named Jayson Blair. Even though he had an abnormally high error rate, he was allowed to continue on until his plagiarisms became very public. In the world of “citizen journalism”, errors are found within minutes after being posted. Continued “errors” result in no one visiting that CJ’s page, thereby accuracy is paramount.

Here we go with Hazinski’s “suggestions”….

• Major news organizations must create standards to substantiate citizen-contributed information and video, and ensure its accuracy and authenticity.

If it weren’t for CJs like Matt Drudge, we may have never known about a DNA-stained blue dress. If it weren’t for citizen journalists, Dan Rather may have altered the result of a presidential election by his reporting of what we now know of as “forged, but accurate” documents.

The all-important professional media either sits on stories THEY don’t deem important, for importance or ideological reasons, or they miss the “facts” altogether, and Mr. Hazinski thinks it important they regulate citizen journalists.

• They should clarify and reinforce their own standards and work through trade organizations to enforce national standards so they have real meaning.

Speaking of the YouTube debates, we all now know that questions were planted for certain candidates to respond to, on more than one event. The persons asking the questions were also preselected to ask those questions. Is that a practice that would be condoned in one of Mr. Hazinski’s journalism classes? In order for that to happen during the debate, either CNN was complicit in the planting of questions, or they were ignorant of what was going on right under their noses.

Which is worse, Mr. Hazinski?

• Journalism schools such as mine at the University of Georgia should create mini-courses to certify citizen journalists in proper ethics and procedures, much as volunteer teachers, paramedics and sheriff’s auxiliaries are trained and certified.

It would appear journalism schools such as yours should offer remedial training for journalists to be given at regular intervals during their careers. That way, a presidential debate doesn’t have to be canceled because there are no writers to write the questions. That, one would think, is something a network anchor making millions of dollars a year could accomplish.

As far as ethics go, most citizen journalists don’t deliberately go out of their way to “Photoshop” pictures and pass them off as truth. Such has happened on too many occasions in the “professional” media. Again, I contend that citizen journalists have hundreds of thousands of potential editors looking over their work at any given time. False stories and pics get by “professional” editors every day, and who is it that catches them and forces corrections? Citizen journalists.

That must really piss them off.

“Journalists generally don’t like any kind of standards or regulation. Many argue that standards could infringe on freedom of the press and journalism shouldn’t be regulated.

“But we have already seen the line between news and entertainment blur enough to destroy significant credibility. Continuing to do nothing as information flow changes will further erode it. Journalism organizations who choose to do nothing may soon find the line between professional and citizen journalism gone as well as the trust of their audiences.”

Tell you what, Mr. Hazinski.

In my humble opinion, it is the professional (main stream) media that has created that blur, and thereby needs more regulation. Supervision, if anything.

Arrogance, that you clearly exude, is the other problem.

Because someone goes to school for something, doesn’t mean they’re automatically good at what they do. If a bunch of those-who-can’t-do-teach journalists are, they’ll create a whole lot of lazy, accuracy-challenged little journalists. Not that all professional journalists are bad, but the impact a few of them can make on the public is alarming.

The one thing that kept these frauds and inaccuracies from taking hold were citizen journalists.

Mr. Hazinski, citizen journalists are not the problem. You are.

Deal with it.

It’s bad enough I have to skim through the selective reflections of the liberal intelligentsia, but it really pisses me off that I can’t even watch Sunday night football without seeing and hearing Keith Olbermann’s smug remarks about conspiracies about the Patriots.

Olbermann’s glass house is getting bigger, to match is inflated sense of ego and worth. The day something embarrassing or improper is revealed about him, the fall from grace will be as harsh as his indictments based purely on partisan rhetoric, as well as the selective ignorance of those who inhale his rhetoric.

A classic example was his tongue-lashing of the Bush Administration on the November 5 episode of “Countdown”….

“The presidency of George W. Bush has now devolved into a criminal conspiracy to cover the ass of George W. Bush.

All the petulancy, all the childish threats, all the blank-stare stupidity;

All the invocations of World War Three, all the sophistic questions about which terrorist attacks we wanted him not to stop, all the phony secrets; all the claims of executive privilege, all the stumbling tap-dancing of his nominees, all the verbal flatulence of his apologists….”

I’m really impressed by Keith’s use of the Thesaurus. In typical liberal fashion, instead of using facts, verifiable facts, to bolster his arguments, it seems he’s just trying to impress us with the number of negative adjectives he can throw together per sentence.

So what’s the issue ticking off Olbermann this time?

Torture.

“All of it is now — after one revelation last week — transparently clear for what it is: the pathetic and desperate manipulation of the government, the re-focusing of our entire nation, towards keeping this mock president, and this unstable vice president, and this departed wildly self-over-rating Attorney General — and the others — from potential prosecution for having approved or ordered the illegal torture of prisoners being held in the name of this country.”

Now, what would Mr. Olbermann do if he (heaven forbid) was an intelligence agent and had a terrorist in custody that knew of an impending nuclear bombing of an American city? Would he just call him names?

After two or so minutes of waterboarding, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed gave up a lot of information of terrorist planning. He even reportedly told a CIA official, “I killed Daniel Pearl. I killed him Hahal (slit his throat in a ritual fashion).” Does Olbermann have any idea what a KSM-type would do to a Jewish Keith Olbermann in captivity?

With all that, George Bush is still his favorite bad guy. According to Olbermann’s narcissism, Bush is hardly intelligent and “courageous” compared to him.

“Mr. Bush — ever done anything that personally courageous?

“Perhaps when you’ve gone to Walter Reed and teared up over the maimed servicemen? And then gone back to the White House and determined that there would be more maimed servicemen?

“Has it been that kind of personal courage, Mr. Bush, when you’ve spoken of American victims and the triumph of freedom and the sacrifice of your own popularity for the sake of our safety? And then permitted others to fire or discredit or destroy anybody who disagreed with you — whether they were your own Generals, or… Max Cleland, or… Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame….”

I’m sure such language has gotten Olbermann invited to all the Greenwich Village parties, and his language has shielded him from the vitriol of the Media Matters and Daily Kos-types. But again, would Keith allow an American city and the millions of people within to burn just so he could show the world just how much better than all of us he is?

Olbermann then quoted President Bush….

“‘The United States of America does not torture.’

“Made you into a liar, Mr. Bush.

“Made you into, if anybody had the guts to pursue it, a criminal, Mr. Bush.

“Water-boarding had already been used on Khalid Sheik Mohammed and a couple of other men none of us really care about — except, Sir, for the one detail you’d forgotten — that there are rules, and even if we just make up these rules, this country observes them anyway, because we’re Americans, sir, and we’re better than that.

“We’re better than you.”

Keith, ask Daniel Pearl if there are rules. Ask Jack Hensley if there are rules. Ask Nick Berg if there are rules, Mr. Olbermann. Ask Paul Johnson if there are rules. These Americans had their heads slowly sliced off by al Qaeda insurgents in Iraq. They weren’t waterboarded. They were murdered in a manner less merciful and humane than cows in our slaughterhouses.

And who the hell are you, Keith Olbermann, that the President of the United States, of whom you’ve savaged for months now, owes you any kind of an explanation on anything?

And as far as courage is concerned, remember what you wrote in Salon about how you, Keith Olbermann, beat up on Suzy Kolber at ESPN2 before they gladly let you move on…?

“I now read with horror of my ESPN2 co-host, Ms. Kolber, sequestering herself in the women’s bathroom and weeping over how I treated her. She told Freeman that as things deteriorated, I wouldn’t talk to her. She’s wrong: I couldn’t talk to her. I pumped up some small-scale complaints into a scenario in which she was at fault for everything ESPN2 hadn’t become. I wasn’t completely obtuse back then, and if anything would have cut through my neuroses, it would’ve been a colleague’s tears. If I had known, I think I could’ve jumped over the fence I’d built around myself and said what the inner guy always knew: No TV show is worth crying over. Suzy: I’m sorry.”

Yeah, and lecture George Bush about courage. But I’m sure that’s the only despicable thing Keith has done in his life and he said he was sorry. That’s all that counts. Now, back to bashing the president….

“And the man your Justice Department selected to decide whether or not water-boarding was torture, had decided, and not in some phony academic fashion, nor while wearing the Walter Mitty poseur attire of flight-suit and helmet.

“He had put his money, Mr. Bush, where your mouth was.

“So, your sleazy sycophantic henchman Mr. Gonzales had him append an asterisk suggesting his black-and-white answer wasn’t black-and-white, that there might have been a quasi-legal way of torturing people, maybe with an absolute time limit and a physician entitled to stop it, maybe, if your administration had ever bothered to set any rules or any guidelines….”

Now we find out that Congressional posturers like Nancy Pelosi KNEW about the waterboarding procedures back in 2003 and commented on such only after it came out in a Washington Post article. Of course, she now says she knew little about it then.

The outrage Madam Speaker is expressing today did not exist when she was briefed as a member of the “Gang of Four”, that is, until it became a potential campaign issue a few weeks ago.

Is THAT courage, Mr. Olbermann? No need to that answer now. I’m sure you’ll bring that up on the next “Countdown.”

Again, I wonder what Mr. Holier-than-thou Keith Olbermann would do if he had to weigh life-or-death issues on an almost daily basis? Would he let us all die just so he’d look good with the liberal left who hasn’t the guts to fight for anything? If it were up to people like Keith Olbermann, the rape rooms in Iraq would be up and running, the genocide in Bosnia would be near complete by now, the starvation in Rwanda would be a slogan on his bumper’s sticker, and he’d probably be issuing another subpoena for Osama bin Laden.

Too bad Keith Olbermann never got the chance to ask President Clinton if the United States tortured terror suspects. I’m sure Olbermann would be included in that need-to-know category. I’m sure he’d be satisfied in the answer either way.

We may never know how many lives waterboarding terror suspects have saved. Maybe Keith Olbermann owes his life to the evil Bush Administration, considering how valued a target New York City is. But even if we find out later that NYC was spared because of information forcibly obtained, there is no reason for liberals like Keith Olbermann to thank those who do their jobs and expect none.

THAT takes courage. Just like the courage it takes to personally insult a president who would never respond to those insults. That would be beneath him… just like Keith Olbermann.

In the second hour, political analyst Rick Senninger joins Bob to talk about Mitt Romney’s speech on religion, the 2008 primary races, and the Bush rebate. “I actually calculated it out,” Senninger told Parks. “If you took the Bush rebate and divided it by the cost of a Big Mac, you can get one about every three days…”

Later, filmmaker Jered Lapidus joins Bob to talk about his new documentary film, The Libel Tourist.

In hour 3, Bob interviews Ken Berwitz, author of The Hopelessly Partisan Guide to American Politics: An Irreverent Look at the Private Lives of Republicans And Democrats.

Download the podcasts here:

Hour 1
Hour 2
Hour 3

Bob rounds out hour one with his debut interview of OTW military correspondent, Lt. Col. Buzz Patterson.

In hour 2, Bob interviews Cybercast News Service Editor-in-Chief Terrence Jeffrey.

Finally, in hour 3, Bob meets guests Paul Ibrahim and Monisha Bansal…

• Paul Ibrahim, Founder and Member of the Board of Directors of the Ivy League Republican Caucus on If America’s Image Is So Bad, Why Do Pro-Americans Like Sarkozy Keep Getting Elected?
• Monisha Bansal, CNS staff writer and editor, on the Bush/Pelosi Fiscal Responsibility hissy fit.

I have taken the position that the six young boys involved shouldn’t have put themselves in the situation they now find themselves. Sure, they are young, hotheaded, and the initial gestures made by the white kids who hung the nooses should never have been excused, or treated as lightly as they were.

But a report I saw on ESPN’s “Outside The Lines” portrayed Jena as a small community where people did get along. Sure, it wasn’t a utopia, but when the opportunists got a chance to thrust themselves into the story, it blew up into the power keg that justified the participation of the likes of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. It’s always unfortunate that these two can come in, join in a well-publicized and media covered event, just to leave the infiltrated township more divided than before the events that started it all happened.

“While we applaud the actions of Louisiana’s Third Circuit Court of Appeals last Friday (Sept. 14) vacating the conviction of Mychal Bell, this is only a first step to address the human rights issues in this case. Authorities must take immediate further action to ensure that the overall culture of the school respects human rights and promotes understanding across communities.”
– Ajamu Baraka, executive director of the U.S. Human Rights Network, 9/19

I asked myself why District Attorney Reed Walters set the bails so high on these young boys involved in what could be construed as a simple schoolyard fight? I asked myself why some of the high profile, “well meaning” media liberals like Amy Goodman saw fit to allow some of the young boys they were advocating for languish in jail? I asked myself where’s Oprah, Danny Glover, Harry Belafonte, Andrew Young, and the rest of those who are so sensitive to racism issues, and why has only David Bowie stepped forward publicly to date and offered a sizable donation to the boy’s defense fund? Why haven’t any of these millionaire activists bailed the kids out?

Why was bail denied for the young high school football star Mychal Bell?

“This is the most blatant example of disparity in the justice system that we’ve seen. You can’t have two standards of justice. We didn’t bring race in it. Those that hung the nooses brought the race into it.”
– Rev. Al Sharpton on CBS’s “The Early Show” before arriving in Jena

According to the aforementioned activists, it was all about racism. It was a white town persecuting young black boys. It was a white school committee that overturned the expulsion of the white kids who hung the nooses. It was about a white kid who justifiably got his ass kicked for calling the young boys “nigger”. It was about a racist white D.A. who railroaded the young black boys, once again calling into question the fairness and integrity of the criminal justice system. Once again, according to the Goodmans, Jacksons, and Sharptons of the world, it was all about racism.

Again I asked, if these acclaimed activists know these kids were set up with one being in jail for months, why wasn’t bailed out? What didn’t we know?

“It is not and never has been about race. It is about finding justice for an innocent victim and holding people accountable for their actions.”
– District Attorney Reed Walters, 9/20

As it turns out, a bond hearing revealed that Mychal Bell has a history of juvenile scrapes with the law, one of which involved him punching out a 17-year-old girl.

I know this will come off as piling on the victim, but as I wrote in my first piece on this subject, it’s the choices these boys made that put them in this situation. The little dickheads who put the nooses on the tree in the first place would have to live with their prank, and walk around with their heads on a swivel, for the rest of their lives. The expulsions-turned-suspensions would be something in their academic record they’d have to answer for. The tree where the nooses were white kids hung out and the nooses were hung was cut down. This was an ugly incident, but the town of Jena, Louisiana could have moved on.

Instead Amy Goodman, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and the thousands they enraged descended on this small town, implied every white there is a racist and every black is a victim. When the ends justify the means, the truth can be a victim as well.

According to the Louisiana Weekly, “The Rev. Al Sharpton told the Associated Press Thursday that he and Reps. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, and William Jefferson, D-La., will press the House Judiciary Committee this week to summon Jena district attorney Reed Walters to explain his actions before Congress.”

Should those hearing happen, it may be more embarrassing to those seeking “justice” as there are facts associated with this case they either ignorant of or just plain ignored.

In the future when these people are involved in their next cause, I would hope people would be cautious as to their motives. For them, the truth may be an inconvenience, so we may not hear it at first, if at all. If it creates a thick tension in the air that the residents they visit have to live with long after they’re gone, so be it.

This is why I’m a cynic when it comes to these people and their motives. I called this a classic example of “blaxploitation”. I rest my case.

For that reason, I’ve always been careful when addressing race issues. The ones I address highlight a double standard, and for that, I get the usual retorts. I’m called many names, and all that tells me is that some are not looking for honest discussion. Some are comfortable in the “victim” role, and for anyone to attempt to hold people responsible for their own actions, you’ll incur their wrath and are thus fair game for the very racism they hold in contempt.

I have to be very careful nowadays about what I write about regarding specific race issues. The companies that host the search engines that point people to the sites that carry my commentary, are now very sensitive as to who says what about whom. For example, I cannot say that “some Muslims” are terrorists. While that may be an accurate assessment based on current events, if I am not “specific”, a company may opt to drop that site from their search engines. Racial insensitivity is not allowed. That is, depending whom that insensitivity is being directed.

On one of the sites owned by a company we are trying to keep happy, a comment about me by one of their subscribers is prominently displayed….

“fucking nigger go help your niggers in the hood your people killing people nigger are killers crack heads low lifes you need to be slaves
you where born to do that niggers are slaves ill niver change”

Now, while I have the ability to “block” this user and his (or her) multiple comments like that one, this is also a classic illustration of selective outrage by the left. If similar comments were posted on an Al Sharpton page, that user would probably be banned by that company. In my case, it’s probably regarded as “free speech”.

After my Jena Six column was posted, it also appeared on several websites, and many of the comments offered were expectedly negative. I also received emails with similar sentiments. I replied to some of the more level-headed, and even gave them my home phone number and invited them to call me over the weekend so we could converse in an atmosphere less abrupt than a website forum. The only condition: please don’t call during the Patriots-Jets game.

I didn’t receive one phone call.

However, I did receive many emails about stories the media and blaxploitation participants avoid. One such story was about the murders of Channon Christian and Chris Newsom. According to an article by James H. Lilley…

“On Saturday January 6, 2007 Hugh Christopher Newsom, age 23 and Channon Gail Christian, age 21, both students at the University of Tennessee went out on a date. They were driving in Channon’s Toyota 4-Runner when they were carjacked at gunpoint. Suddenly the crime turned far more savage than an armed car theft. Chris and Channon were kidnapped and driven to 2316 Chipman Street where they were forced into the home at gunpoint. While Channon was forced to watch, her boyfriend was raped prison style and then his penis was cut off. He was later driven to nearby railroad tracks where he was shot and set afire. But Channon’s hell was just beginning. She was beaten; gang raped repeatedly in many ways, had one of her breasts cut off and bleach poured down her throat to destroy DNA evidence – all while she was still alive. To add to Channon’s degradation the suspects took turns urinating on her. They too set her body afire, apparently inside the residence, but for some reason left her body there – in five separate trash bags….”

The difference between the Jena Six sentencing outage and the murders of these two young people were that the Jena Six are black and were targeted by a white district attorney. Christian and Newsom were white and killed by Blacks. When race is brought into the mix, that’s where we have media coverage problems.

Because of political correctness, we aren’t allowed to look at crime as just that, crime. When a racial component is introduced, that’s when the traditional responses and excuses are displayed and God help anyone who strays from that playbook.

One can’t talk about black-on-black crime, which is a huge unreported problem, especially in New Orleans. That’s considered “airing dirty laundry” and you risk the typical vitriolic onslaught. One can’t talk about black-on-white crime because that’s racially insensitive. However, you can go to the mountain top and scream all day about white-on-black crime, because that’s the perfect forum for bringing up the legacy of Jim Crow, slavery, and point the finger of individual responsibility away from the criminals and back onto society as a whole. Should I bring it up, I become Uncle Bob again.

I have been very consistent through my years of writing to not make excuses for Black people. I believe we are capable of discerning right from wrong, and until we beat back those who treat us as anything but thinking human beings, there will justifiably be those who will look at us with disdain and thus, a lack of concern when Jena Six situations occur.

It also perpetuates racial divisions within our nation when we are forced to leave out components of a story because we are afraid to “offend”. It took a couple of days for us to find out that the D.C. snipers were Muslim. It took awhile for us to find out that the man who murdered actress Adrienne Shelley, as well as those who executed the four college students in Newark were illegal aliens. As long as selective reporting and exploitation is continued by media and social activists, the very racism they decry will continue. I sincerely hope this is not by design, but I have my suspicions.

So, I’ll continue to bring up these issues in a manner the mainstream media and/or activists won’t. I know what’s coming, but I will not demean the capability of anyone to know right and wrong behavior. This is not my living in a glass house, but holding everyone to an equal standard.

Until we do, the racial divide in this country will not be closed. Some may want us to remain divided. I see no benefit to this.

Many people have been able to climb out of whatever adversity blocked their paths to “success”. To say that others can’t is insulting and, in my opinion, racist. Many have recommended I explain the path to success instead of tearing my own people down. I have done so on many occasions, and I consider it stating the obvious.

Staying in school. Ignoring the excuse that studying is “acting white”, and taking whatever education is offered. Not making excuses and taking advantage of the opportunities offered in this country and not succumbing to any of the obstacles put in your way. Sure, it sounds simplistic, but many have taken this route so it can be done.

But making excuses for bad behavior is racist, demeaning, and you will find none of that in anything I’ve ever written regarding race issues. That’s the difference between myself and an Al Sharpton or Amy Goodman. If that makes them saviors to some and me the bad guy, that says more about the state of our national dialogue than anything I could ever write.

I watch portions of Free Speech TV’s Democracy Now! because it’s a part of my daily employment duties. You know, make sure it properly airs so the local libs don’t go off in a conspiracy theory tirade. They know I work where I work, and are always suspicious I may be up to some funny business.

But as a Black man, I am also disgusted on an almost daily basis by the parade of Black victims trotted out by hostess Amy Goodman. It’s as if she considers herself this Great White Hope; the only chance these poor people have to get the justice only her show’s exposure can assure. She is their lone, caring voice in this insensitive, corporate, racist world we live in.

How liberal.

During the August 30th episodic, Miss Amy was in New Orleans commemorating the second anniversary of the disaster that was Hurricane Katrina. Goodman was, of course, reporting from the hood.

AMY GOODMAN: I’m here in the Lower Ninth Ward. Behind me is the Industrial Canal levee that broke two years ago between Lake Pontchartrain and the Mississippi River. At 9:38 a.m. local time on Wednesday, a moment of silence was held across New Orleans to mark the moment the levees were breached two years ago.

Hurricane Katrina flooded about 80% of New Orleans and killed well over 1,600 people, displacing another one-and-a-half million people from the Gulf Coast. Only two-thirds of the region’s population has returned home.

Few areas in New Orleans were as hard hit by Hurricane Katrina as the Lower Ninth Ward, where we’re broadcasting from today. This predominantly African American working-class neighborhood remains largely in ruins two years later.

Of course, Amy Goodman would never ask Mayor Ray Nagin why the Lower Ninth Ward is still a mess. A disaster of that magnitude was something no one could really imagine happening. One could never blame someone for not evacuating an entire city. Such has never really happened before.

Well, I guess you could blame President Bush, and many on her show have in the two years since.

Goodman then replayed her broadcast of two years ago where she interviewed Malik Rahim, cofounder of the Common Ground Collective.

AMY GOODMAN: As our video cameras followed him, Malik showed us how corpses still remained in the street.

MALIK RAHIM: Now, his body been here for almost two weeks. Two weeks tomorrow, alright, that this man’s body been laying here. And there’s no reason for it. Look where we at. I mean, it’s not flooded. There’s no reason for them to be – left that body right here like this. I mean, that’s just totally disrespect. You know? And, I mean, two weeks. Every day, we ask them about coming and pick it up. And they refuse to come and pick it up. And you could see, it’s literally decomposing right here, right out in the sun. Every day we sit up and we ask them about it, because, I mean, this is close as you could get to tropical climate in America. And they won’t do anything with it.

AMY GOODMAN: Malik, do you know who this person is?

MALIK RAHIM: No. But regardless of who it is, I wouldn’t care if it’s Saddam Hussein or bin Laden, nobody deserve to be left here. And the kids pass by here, and they’re seeing it. I mean, the elderly, this is what’s frightening a lot of people into leaving. We don’t know if he’s a victim of vigilantes or what. But that’s all we know is that his body had been allowed to remain out here for over two weeks.

I remember watching that broadcast. Goodman asked those who passed by if they were going to pick up that body and give him the dignity he deserved. Amidst the chaos that was the Katrina aftermath, every law enforcement, city, and military person Goodman asked didn’t know what to do with this body, or who was responsible for the pick up.

She ultimately blamed the lack of common human decency on the military.

But in the end, not even Amy Goodman would offer that body the dignity he deserved. Amy Goodman left that body floating in the street as well.

Had SHE have picked that body up and brought it to the authorities, it surely would have made for good television and may have garnered her some humanitarian award down the road. But in the end, giving a Black person dignity was something she couldn’t find it within herself to do.

On a brief side note, many on Democracy Now! since the hurricane have repeated their assertion that the Bush Administration did virtually nothing to help get the people out of New Orleans before Katrina hit. Many of us have responded by reminding them that such an evacuation was the call of state and local officials.

According to the New York Times’ Tuesday, August 28th edition, “Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco was summoned to a courtroom on Tuesday to testify in a homicide case over Hurricane Katrina’s single biggest loss of life, and she refused to take blame for the deaths of 35 patients who drowned at a nursing home.”

“The largest target in that strategy was Ms. Blanco. Rock-bottom in public opinion polls partly because of her handling of the hurricane disaster effort, the governor, a Democrat, announced months ago that she would not seek re-election this year.

“You, Governor, never issued an order of mandatory evacuation,” a lawyer for the Manganos, John Reed, said.

“Suggesting, as she did all morning, that local officials were properly at the forefront, Ms. Blanco responded, “I did not issue that order, because all of the local governments were deeply engaged in getting people out and helping them to evacuate.”

“Did you have the authority to order a mandatory evacuation at 9 o’clock on Saturday?” some 30 hours before the storm hit, another lawyer, James Cobb, asked.

“It’s not exactly — the procedures that behave that way,” Ms. Blanco said. ‘‘The governor allows local officials to do that, because local citizens follow local officials.”

So, it wasn’t the Bush Administration’s responsibility to get the people of New Orleans to higher ground. It was Blanco’s and Mayor Ray Nagin’s job, and they both dropped the ball and blamed Bush. Something Democracy Now! has since failed to report.

Later, Goodman had on Nat LaCour, secretary-treasurer of the American Federation of Teachers….

AMY GOODMAN: How is it for you to be here in the Lower Ninth Ward?

NAT LaCOUR: It’s really depressing. Obviously, we are dissatisfied with the rate of progress in rebuilding the city. And, of course, the Lower Ninth Ward was the hardest hit.

AMY GOODMAN: Talk about the situation with the teachers. I don’t think most people in this country understand the hurricane that swept through the schools after the natural hurricane.

NAT LaCOUR: Well, that is correct. It’s not Katrina that did the damage. It’s many of the elected officials in this state and in this local community, that on the heels of the storm they terminated almost all of the school employees — and so, it wasn’t just teachers — teachers, paraprofessionals, cooks, bus drivers, principals. They fired 7,500 people. Now, the tragedy of —

AMY GOODMAN: They fired everyone?

NAT LaCOUR: Yes. The tragedy of that is that many of these individuals had been impacted by the storm, lost their property, only to discover that there were people who were conspiring to take their jobs. And when you took their job, you also took their insurance. Even for the people who were retired and was participating in the local healthcare plan, the premiums went up so much — they tripled — that many people had to drop their insurance, even if they were staying here. So you had a really bad situation, not well thought out, but people attempting to seize the opportunity to create charter schools and to take control of the school system.

Of course, we all know the success that is the public school system, especially in the Black community. Also, as a frequent consumer of Democracy Now!, it’s apparent that The Man has forced out these teachers in an attempt to screw young Black children out of the meaningful education they previously received.

This smacks of racism and Amy Goodman is on the case.

However, it would appear that many are not so enraged by this change. In a Tuesday, August 28th column in BlackAmericaWeb.com, there may be a problem with Mr. LaCour’s claim that “almost all” the teachers have been fired.

Reopened MLK Charter School a Guidepost for New Orleans’ Post-Katrina Education Model
Date: Tuesday, August 28, 2007
By: Sherrel Wheeler Stewart and Michelle J. Nealy, BlackAmericaWeb.com

Standing firmly amid the Lower Ninth Ward’s abandoned lots, vacant homes and shuddered buildings, lies an oasis of hope for a community still largely in exile.

At the corner of Caffin and North Claiborne Streets, sits the newly renovated Martin Luther King, Jr. Charter School for Science and Technology, the first school in the Lower Ninth Ward to reopen.

According to recent reports, less than 60 percent of the Lower Ninth’s pre-Katrina population has returned to the neighborhood. However, 70 percent of King’s students and 90 percent of the staff have returned.

Two years after the Aug. 29, 2005 storm, the school is open once again, with a spruced-up name, brightly painted columns and shiny floors. King students, parents and teachers recently celebrated the school’s fresh, new facilities and brand new equipment, a stark contrast from the 10 feet of water that engulfed the school two years before.

I could be wrong, but “everyone” would include teachers.

Charter schools have a far better reputation of teaching children than do traditional public schools. IF kids learn and the word gets out, could this reduce any kind of leverage LaCour’s teachers union has in the future? Probably. How do you counter this? Go on a willing Amy Goodman program and imply racism.

That’s what Amy Goodman is good at.

Exploiting Black people for partisan, liberal advantage. Amy Goodman is an exception to the rulers. Some may believe she means well. I’m not one of them. Democracy Now! packages itself as a “news” program that exposes injustice where the corporate media will not. Democracy Now! exploits anyone, especially minorities, and those who live and breathe by each word that comes out of Goodman’s mouth are no better than her.

Instead of bringing on Black people (outside of tenured, liberal academics) who can share the recipe for success in America, Amy Goodman and Democracy Now! will annually exploit the death and misery that was the Katrina aftermath to use propaganda in an attempt to secure power for people who ultimately keep Blacks thinking they’re victims.

I’m not saying Goodman is a racist… okay, maybe I am. Elitist if nothing else. If a conservative were exploiting Black people in the same manner, what would Democracy Now! be calling that conservative…?

As we couldn't find it, the email must have wound up in our email junk box and was deleted. The irony. So he offered to fax it, and sure enough, within two minutes our fax machine was delivering blank sheets of paper. He probably faxed the blank side. Less than a minute or so later, the actual fax came through.

According to this MoveOn.org communique, the report will be "highlighting the cost of the Iraq War to residents in every congressional district" including ours.

Now while I won't insult your intelligence with the guts of the text, it was the title that initially grabbed my attention…. (more…)

No comment.

Their latest "update" on Pvt. Scott Thomas Beauchamp ended like this…. (more…)

For some, too far is never far enough….

"The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner"
From my pal Jerry Breen….

The leader of the Netherlands' right-wing Freedom Party, Geert Wilders, has called for a ban on the sale and distribution of the Qur'an. He would also outlaw the book’s use in the mosque and at home. Mr Wilders says the Qur'an (Koran) is a fascist book which promotes violence and is similar to Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf.

In a letter-to-the-editor in today’s de Volkskrant newspaper, Wilders argues that the Qur'an should only be permitted for research at an academic level.

However, the MP – who is known for his controversial statements about Islam – says he knows his proposal doesn’t stand a chance of being approved by parliament. His Freedom Party has nine seats in the 150-seat Dutch lower house of parliament.

My entry has been read widely (an understatement) in the Netherlands, but those same readers apparently did not use the provided link to the actual article and some seem to be under the impression I wrote the story.

I did not. Again, it was written by Nicolien den Boer of Radio Netherlands Worldwide. My comment was that Wilder's suggestion will never be implemented because the fear of reprisal usually causes people to appease instead of confront the real problem of those who seek to impose their doctrine over their hosts.

Is all.

Let's try this again. Read HERE

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An Army helo crashes while the intellectuals debate the morality of it all.

A little pre-Surge, liberal pessimism makes this movie a bit dated before the November 9 release. Time for a quick re-write, or one of those "alternate" endings.

Lions. Lambs. Those roles are already well cast.

"Ya know, I'm old enough to remember when folks talked about black people this way. Somehow managed to repeat only the bad stories, the worst examples, the ugliest crimes. Complained that "they" were demanding too much, that "they" ought to stop trying to change the way "we" liked things to be. People really did that (some still do). They didn't see themselves as bigots, but realists, just telling it like it is.

"I am tired of apologizing to Muslims"

They too said they were tired of apologizing, but ya know, I never heard them apologize at all."

And there was this one.

“Bob, what name would you call yourself? You've used the words intolerant and unapologetic. You've described Muslims in the worst terms possible. Is there another word besides racist that you would like us to use?”

It's truly amazing how unoriginal the liberal template of response is to those who disagree with them. Throw out the “r-word” and that should shut me up, right?

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I am tired of apologizing.

I am tired of apologizing to Muslims. It’s not something that’s happened overnight. It’s taken a while, but now, no more apologies.

We, as modern societies, have opened our borders to Muslims. What have we gotten in return? Demands. If we complain, we’re called racists. We apologize. And why do we apologize? The fear of violence. That’s right, I said it, and that’s what most of you are thinking.

How have we bent over backwards for Muslims? Here are some of the more recent examples….

(more…)

No audio, no editorializing, no second-guessing, no blaming, no "eyewitness" accounts….

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