Supplemental: To Trevor Noah, it doesn’t make sense!

WEDNESDAY, JULY 29, 2015

But here’s where impressions can come from:
Is Trevor Noah perhaps a bit of a hack?

That fear surfaced a few months ago, right after he was chosen to succeed Jon Stewart. In a piece at the new Salon, Silman and Saraiya describe a concern the young comic expressed in a recent stand-up set:
SILMAN AND SARAIYA (7/29/15): Talking about his own experience being pulled over by police, Noah observed: “you know what’s crazy, is I don’t know how not to die. That’s the thing that freaks me out right now—I don’t know how not to die.” Saying he felt “there was a time when black people and police had an unspoken agreement,” now he notes that “every time I turn on the news another black person’s being killed for seemingly fewer and fewer reasonable reasons. It just doesn’t make sense.”

He then turned one-by-one to the deaths of Trayvon Martin, Mike Brown, Eric Garner and Walter Scott to illustrate the random, absurd reasons that police have used to justify the taking of black lives.
Just for the record, Trayvon Martin wasn’t killed by police. Did we mention that this report appears at the new Salon?

At any rate, Noah seems to feel that something has changed in this society, which he only recently joined. Every time he turns on the news, “another black person’s being killed for seemingly fewer and fewer reasonable reasons.”

“It just doesn’t make sense,” Noah says. We’ll assume he’s being sincere, that he’s not being a hack.

Noah seems to think that those increased news reports reflect a change in police behavior—an upswing in black deaths at hands of police. That’s possible, of course. But an upswing in certain kinds of news reports may also reflect a change in the values of news directors—a change in the types of events directors choose to put on the air.

We’ve seen no statistics which demonstrate that police killings are on a major upswing, or on any upswing at all. (As has been widely noted, this country doesn’t keep good statistics about deaths at the hands of police.) It does seem clear that news directors are deciding to put such events on the air more frequently than they may have done in the past. This may be driven by an increase in cellphone videotape, and/or by the heightened belief that such deaths deserve coverage.

Is Noah seeing more black deaths on the air because more deaths are occurring? Or is he seeing more black deaths on the air because news judgments have changed?

We don’t know the answer to that question—and Noah assumes the worst. Like punditry, comedy can get a whole lot easier when you play it that way.

We’ve seen no statistics which settle this matter. We have seen the wide discussion in recent years of a string of “anecdotal” examples, four of whom are named in the passage above.

Where does Noah get the sense that police killings are on the rise? In part, it may be because more such events are getting put on the air, where they get treated as Perfect Examples. And it may be because we increasingly massage, invent and disappear facts to create our Perfect Examples.

Consider another recent piece at the pitiful new Salon. Somewhat horribly, the piece was written by Scott Timberg, a former writer for the Los Angeles Times who isn’t a young, inexperienced kid.

To what extent do we on the pseudo-left now massage our examples? Alas! Where the other tribe has developed its birthers, we increasingly have our own less-than-fully rational “deathers.” Try to believe that Timberg, an experienced adult journalist, began his report like this:
TIMBERG (7/27/15): The police killings of unarmed black men like Eric Garner, Michael Brown and, most recently, Sam Dubose at a July 19 traffic stop at the University of Cincinnati, have enraged many and baffled more. Why did Cleveland police shoot and kill 12-year-old Tamir Rice last year? How did self-styled block watch patrolman George Zimmerman decide to shoot and kill teenager Trayvon Martin, who was armed with nothing but a bag of candy on that night in 2012? These outrages have caused demonstrations, urban unrest, more violence and a larger sense that something has gone wrong in the nation’s race relations.

Besides outright racism, what motivates the overreaction of law-enforcement and vigilantes who have left these men dead?

A social psychologist at Wellesley College who studies diversity and friendship, Angela Bahns, has recently completed research that helps to explain part of the puzzle: It shows that people can imagine a sense of threat—a threat serious enough to justify violence—even with no real evidence besides their own stereotypes. And the stereotypes, the research suggests, are the root causes of the violence.
Is Scott Timberg a “deather?” It’s hard to believe that a serious, adult professional journalist composed a passage which is so deeply selective about such a serious subject.

As he starts, Timberg almost makes it sound like Martin was killed by police, as Silman and Soraiya do in their piece about Noah. Presumably, he means to classify George Zimmerman as a “vigilante,” a term he introduces in paragraph 2.

That said, please note what Timberg says in that passage about the killing of Martin. In truth, he presents a textbook example of the way our “deathers” now work:

According to Timberg, people are “baffled” by the killing of Martin, who he correctly says was unarmed. In fairness, it’s no wonder that Timberg’s readers are baffled! This is the way he describes the killing:

“How did self-styled block watch patrolman George Zimmerman decide to shoot and kill teenager Trayvon Martin, who was armed with nothing but a bag of candy on that night in 2012?” Timberg seems to suggest that Zimmerman “imagined a sense of threat—a threat serious enough to justify violence—even with no real evidence besides [his] own prejudice.”

Whatever you think of Zimmerman’s conduct that night, that’s classic “deather” writing! In the manner of propagandists worldwide, Timberg simply omits the fight which was occurring between Zimmerman and Martin, “who was armed with nothing but a bag of candy.”

He omits the testimony of the one eyewitness who came out of his house and got a good look at what was occurring during that fight. He doesn’t mention the injuries suffered by Zimmerman before his fired the fatal shot.

As propagandists have always done, he mentions the piteous bag of candy and disappears everything else. This is classic post-journalistic behavior at the gruesome new Salon.

Timberg’s description of that scene is classic in its lack of obsessive honesty. For Ta-Nehisi Coates’ initial reaction to the “not guilty” verdict in that case, please keep reading.

In the meantime, Timberg’s description of the killing of Michael Brown is classic “deather” prose too. He disappears the Justice Department report which judged that every shot fired by Darren Wilson was “justified,” due to Brown’s behavior.

Once again, Timberg eliminates basic facts which don’t lead us to the conclusion he wants us to reach. In this case, he wants us to judge that Wilson “imagined a sense of threat—a threat serious enough to justify violence—even with no real evidence besides their own stereotypes.”

After a detailed investigation, Eric Holder’s Justice Department judged different. Writing for a deather journal, Timberg doesn’t tell.

Wherever incipient TV stars dwell, Noah feels he’s seeing more reports of wanton police killings. It doesn’t occur to him that this may be a function of the numbers of such events which are now being put on the air, or that he may be getting selective accounts of what actually occurred in those Perfect Examples.

It’s easy to gin a Perfect Example if you play the game the way Timberg does. Increasingly, that’s the way we in the pseudo-liberal world have decided to play.

They’ve had their birthers for almost ten years. We have countered with our deathers. This brings us back to Coates.

A jury found George Zimmerman not guilty on July 13, 2013. The next day, Coates wrote a post at The Atlantic in which he said this:

“I think the jury basically got it right.”

At the time, Coates was interacting heavily in the comment threads at his site. He did so in this instance.

His comments aren’t the simple-minded piddle people like Timberg now serve, with Noah perhaps following along. Might Zimmerman have been in reasonable fear for his life when he was being pummeled by Martin? Might he reasonably have been in fear of “imminent danger of death or great bodily harm,” the standard under Florida law and the law of most states?

The horrible Timberg has wished that away, but Timberg is a deather. This is what Coates wrote that day, responding to a commenter:
COATES (7/14/13): I am on the ground and you are on top of me wailing away. I am most certainly in “imminent danger of death or great bodily harm.”

I say this as someone who has been in that position,
and the person putting someone in that position. It is really, really frightening. And you are in danger of “great bodily harm” at the very least. Punches kill people. Skulls hit concrete or tables and cause great damage.

And that assumes that you know you are only being hit with someone’s fist. What if it feels like you’re being hit with brass knuckles? What if you think you see the person reaching for something to finish the job?

Fights are not tame staid events. They are chaotic, random and very, very scary. They are not regulated. There are no TKOs. Fist-fights kill people—and there is no guarantee that a fist-fight will stay at that level.
About a month later, Coates largely flipped. By now, we’d say he’s a bit of a deather too. Given his brilliance as a writer, we’d call it a loss to the world.

The other team has the repulsive birther Trump. We have people like Timberg. Each group has been widely enabled by the mainstream press.

Tomorrow: The development of a Perfect Example

Friday or Saturday: Two sets of statistics

69 comments:

  1. Wait, when did you go from being cantankerous to an all out racist?

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    1. Where've you been?

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    2. Is Coates a racist for what Somerby quotes him as writing about Zimmerman?

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    3. Excellent defense of Bob, hardindr. Personally I would not have let the cantankerous charge go unrefuted myself.

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    4. Bob said the magic word: Trayvon.

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    5. If people want to live in a fantasy world in which they get to make up in their minds up what happened between Zimmerman/Martin and Brown/Wilson to fulfill their political fantasies, then great. But they look stupid and foolish when they do so.

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    6. Now come on, as long as you are a white male you are born an all-out racist. To deny as much is just flaunting your white privilege. I can only assume @2:09 is also a white racist for suggesting the caucasian Bob could have ever been anything but.

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    7. I don't know 5:33. But his use of "cantankerous" offers a clue to some order of intelligence above being a pre-human droog.

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    8. 2:09 is a racist. He thinks he isn't but he is. He thinks labeling others as such disguises his racism, but it doesn't. We know he is a racist because he is white. What a hypocrite you are, 2:09, you racist.

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    9. We are sorry @ 12:44, but we made a mistake. You are not good enough yet to be in the One Day League.

      Please, in the future do post until 24 hours have passed since the original comment you respond to appears.

      Tutoring is available at cicero's online college of vanity blog commentary. Perhaps if you improve you can come back and post earlier.

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  2. Is Bob Somerby perhaps a bit of a bigot? That fear surfaced some time ago, right after he seemed to be coming up with stereotypes for people with whom he disagreed.

    At any rate, just for the record, we've seen no statistics. Did we mention he has been spending a lot of time covering Rachel Maddow and Salon?

    Is Bob attacking more and more professors? Or is it just because more black professors are crazy and expressing anger in print? We don’t know the answer to that question—and Somerby covers the worst.

    As propagandists have always done, Bob harpoons the piteous gas bags at Salon and then simply asks leading rhetorical questions about everybody else. This is classic post-journalistic behavior at the gruesome old Howler.

    Is Somerby flirting with bigotry? We don’t know the answer to that question—but Bob almost makes it sound like the worst. We’ll assume he’s being sincere, that he’s not being a bigot.

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    1. Hey. He's working on those stereotypes. He even went out of his way to say Timberg isn't young.

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    2. Timberg was and arts and culture writer. You have to watch out for them. They are like the damn Comparative Literature Professors. Liberal leaders all.

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    3. Everything is possible.

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    4. anon 3:47, you are idiotic. There's nothing invalid or racist in the TDH post - you certainly don't come up with anything to the contrary. Again, I ask, rhetorically in the sense that you will never respond for there is no rational explanation, if you think the blog is so gruesome, why to you spend your time reading it day in and out? Aren't there thousands of other blogs you could choose from? And the incessant parody of the blogger's style long ago become utterly tedious.

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    5. I didn't read the word racist in 3:47's post. I read the word bigot. And I didn't see an accusation. I saw the same type of questions raised by Somerby raised ABOUT Somerby. This was no parody by 3:47. It was turnabout using the exact language Bob Somerby used on his targets in this post on him. If you find this objectionable, object when Somerby does it as well.

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    6. No, you are wrong. @3:47 is a troll and AC/MA is correct.

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    7. Are you a bit of a flake? That conclusion surfaced when you randomly started posting erroneous accusations that others were writing things they didn't write.

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    8. Is 3:37 a bit of an idiot, as AC/MA suggests, or is he perhaps mistakenly asking if Somerby being a bit of a bigot instead of asking is Somerby is simply something of an obsessed jerk?

      The reason why I ask is that Somerby seems to have two favorite news targets above all others, Salon and Maddow. And he seems to have one death he constantly brings back up...the tragic senseless killing of Trayvon Martin.

      He has habit of trying to destroy the credibility of his targets when their errors run counter to his memes, then use their work when they reinforce those memes. This attack on Trevor Noah does just that.

      He quickly focuses on the error of associating Martin's death with the police. He notes it came from Salon, but passes by his disclaimer and uses the piece to tell us how Noah "seems" to feel. Here is a review of the same event from AP available to Somerby for use in checking the accuracy of Salon's two TV critics. It didn't quite reinforce the picture Somerby wished to paint of Noah the hack.

      http://www.denverpost.com/outdoors/ci_28554327/trevor-noah-takes-racism-skips-politics-standup-gig

      "Now, I don't know how not to die. Because every time I turn on the news, another black person has been killed for seemingly fewer and fewer reasonable reasons," he said, starting with the non-police shooting of teenager Trayvon Martin in Florida.

      ... Noah mimicked a TV news commentator: "Who was this young boy ... and why was he wearing a hoodie? What was he doing in this neighborhood wearing a hoodie?"

      If the lesson was to avoid wearing hoodies while black, Noah said, it was rewritten with the deaths of Michael Brown in Missouri ("He didn't have a hoodie. He approached a police officer") and again with Walter Scott in South Carolina ("Running away from a policeman, he got shot five times in the back")."

      Or perhaps Somerby could have checked the review from USA Today:

      "He discussed the long list of news stories about the deaths of black men, such as Trayvon Martin, and a number who died at the hands of police, including Michael Brown, Eric Garner and Walter Scott.
      _________

      "He figuratively scratched his head regarding Scott, a man shot running from a police officer in South Carolina. "There is nothing less threatening than a person running away from you."

      http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/tv/2015/07/29/6-things-we-learned-daily-show-host---trevor-noahs-standup-act/30819453/

      I have no idea if, witnessing this performance in person, I too would have come away with a slightly different view of what Noah said or whether I would have found it funny. But I note in both reviews Noah is not portrayed saying Martin died at the hands of police.

      Somerby found the Salon version useful to his meme, and used it as a segue to whip on another Salon writer, who he says "almost makes it sound like Martin was killed by police" when clearly the writer does not.

      Somerby then returns to take a poke at Noah, writing, 'Wherever incipient TV stars dwell, Noah feels he’s seeing more reports of wanton police killings. It doesn’t occur to him that this may...." Somerby has absolutely no earthly idea what does or does not occur to Trevor Noah. He has no reason whatsoever to return to him. Except to set up his next segue, the refutation of the "deathers by Ta-Nehisi Coates, which, of course, uses the killing of Martin by George Zimmerman. Somerby's own "perfect example."

      Yes, Somerby mentions the Brown killing in Missouri, but notice he skips the Garner case and the Scott case. Do a check on those two cases in Somerby's archives and compare them to Trayvon Martin.

      Is Trevor Noah a bit of a hack? Is Bob Somerby a deceptively dishonest one?

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    9. What is WRONG with you? Get a life!

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    10. What a GREAT response. So informative. So ORIGINAL!

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    11. Why do you keep peeing on Bob's leg? He doesn't share any views of Rick Santorum. He would not vote for Rick Santorum. But peeing on his leg won't stop him.

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    12. Thanks to two of the above commenters for mentioning "Get a Life" and "Dog Pee Won't Stop Santorum."

      By way of disclosure, or maybe confession, I need to get a life. Like Bob Somerby, I watch too much cable news. I find it very difficult to follow FOX and MSNBC at the same time, much less CNN. It makes me appreciate Bob's complaints about the delay in transcripts.

      But I just want to go on the record. Rachel has been given a very unfair time slot. She follows "Hardball" and "All In."
      No much news is generated during that time of day. so she is working with material they have first crack at. The only way she can make her show interesting is to bring something different and she uses humor.

      I thought the "Dog Pee Won't Stop Santorum" story was hilarious. I can understand why he used it as a campaign speech. I understand why the headline was funny. And given his "man on dog" sex comment and the subsequent Goggle bomb, I even understand why someone with Maddow's wicked sense of humor found making it a URL was clever.

      I also now have a better idea why Somerby had to go into blogging.

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  3. I really don't think the snark Josh Marshall directed Friday at "those" Clinton's was worth a whole day of delay in presenting this burning question about the startling possibility of Trevor Noah being a bit of a hack. Plus Coates largely flipping on Bob to being a bit of a team Deather member might have been prevented with a more timely post. That way it wouldn't hugely have been something of a loss.

    Damn that Marshall. That said, we'll always have Salon.

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  4. Heck, if you think Josh Marshall was tough on the Clintons...if HuffPo has you tearing out your hair like Donald on Ivana Trump...if "Digby's" digs at Hillary make you feel like a misplaced Rose law firm billing record, check out the latest at the New Salon.

    Camille Paglia: How Bill Clinton is like Bill Cosby

    http://www.salon.com/2015/07/28/camille_paglia_how_bill_clinton_is_like_bill_cosby/

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    1. Paglia has always been a lunatic, but the interviewer is even worse (the Editor-and-Chief of Salon no less). Why bother readying Salon any more?

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    2. Three days of Paglia pimping at Salon. Three days of Maddow bashing at Howler. Gack!

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    3. Aren't her views on the Campus Rape culture movement similar to Somerby's?

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    4. They are both hard to read.

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    5. They are similar to Bernie Sanders 60's views on rape fantasy.

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    6. Paglia is fantastic.

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    7. The analysis even extends to Willie being the first black POTUS.

      Bill Clinton: "I Loved Being Called The First Black President"

      http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2014/04/03/bill_clinton_i_loved_being_called_the_first_black_president.html

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  5. Bob quotes Coates anecdote about fist fighting but provides no statistics. I would guess the percentage of fist fights that lead to great bodily harm or death is very small. Great bodily harm is vague and open to interpretation. Death is fairly straightforward.

    The court testimony of the eyewitness Bob mentions, differed from his pre trial account. Under oath the eyewitness did not provide clear testimony about the behavior of Trayvon or Zimmerman. Other witnesses offered opposing views to the eyewitness Bob mentions. Considering how incredibly minor Zimmerman's injuries were along with the other testimony given at the trial, I in no way think he was reasonably in fear of imminent danger of death or great bodily harm. I am inclined to think Trayvon reasonably feared imminent danger of death or great bodily harm. And if so, he was right.

    From Bob's quotes of him, Coates comes across as immature and troubled as he explains to his readers what it is like to have a real fist fight. It seems to indicate Coates has a history of violence and issues with dominance and competition. Aggression is one of human's worst traits.

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    1. As long as you are beating someone's head into the sidewalk their life is at your mercy. When people die from this they don't call it a "fistfight" but more correctly homicide by assault. Boxers and MMA athletes have "fistfights" which are termed as such because they regulated so as not to be concluded by death. This is why Coates says it is frightening to be involved even when you are the one on top. Trayvon learned too late what it means to put a stranger's life at stake.

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    2. "I in no way think he was reasonably in fear of imminent danger of death or great bodily harm. I am inclined to think Trayvon reasonably feared imminent danger of death or great bodily harm."

      Do you work in the Ministry of Truth, perchance? Do you love Big Brother after all?

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    3. I like references to literature popular with older boomers. Bet you don't do "To Kill a Mockingbird," though.

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    4. "I would guess." "I in no way think." "I am inclined to think."

      [unsuppressed yawn]

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    5. 1984 grounds and pounds To Kill a Mockingbird while its heart rending screams of terror pierce the night air

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    6. A 14 year old killed another 14 year old in a school yard fight on concrete involving no knives or guns when I was in middle school. I witnessed it, standing and watching with other kids. It was shocking to us all but made me take fighting a lot more seriously. These sorts of tragedies happen on a regular basis, below the radar. Ask anyone who works in a hospital emergency room. Look at the guy who was beaten up after the Dodgers game in LA.

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    7. Regular basis? Evidence? I did ask someone who works in an emergency room, the response was no, that kind of stuff is not as common as some people seem to think.

      There is no evidence to support that Zimmerman was getting his head beat into the sidewalk.

      Coates says a fistfight is frightening because they are unregulated? Sure ok, so outside a boxing ring one is free to pull a gun during a fistfight and murder someone. Risible. There is a relevant statute in Florida.

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    8. Perfect demonstration of why anecdotes are useless.

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    9. If an eyewitness and his recorded screams are "no evidence" guess you have a point. Scary to think morons like this could have ended up on Zimmerman's jury.

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    10. What scares me about politicizing an incident like this, is, for starters, that the general public is never going to go along with the idea that punching someone in the face can be rationalized away as a simple "fist fight", it's assault. People by and large don't want to live in a society where that becomes normal behavior.

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    11. @ 2:26 I was raised in middle class white American culture. One of the first "norms" inculcated in children is the scary guy stalking you at night.

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  6. A "long lost documentary" on feminism means nothing more to HuffPo than another chance to bash Hillary.

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    1. Another unlinked comment late at night about something on another blog means another Hillary supporter may be out to prove Somerby is a good guesser.

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    2. You don't link to things you don't want people to read.

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    3. The only problem with people reading it from a link you provide is they would come back and say you are proving Somerby is a good guesser. People like you are a problem for Hillary's Clinton. Fortunately other candidates attract the same problems as well.

      http://highline.huffingtonpost.com/articles/en/lets-go-full-crocodile-ladies/

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  7. It's starting to look like Trevor Noah got the job because a) he's cute, and b) The Daily Show needed to make reparations for lack of black.

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    1. It is starting to look like Bob's invocation of the magic words is paying overtime.

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  8. Boy, more fodder for the rightwing goons who read this terrible blog. To focus on the Martin/Zimmerman scuffle while completely ignoring how Martin ended up in that pointless mess in the first place is absurd. That kid is dead because some hyped-up wannabe cop hunted him down for walking on a street in the rain.

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    1. The menacing "kid" is dead because his parents never taught him not to glare at people and walk around their trucks, and later violently attack them as they are reporting the antisocial and suspicious behavior to the police..

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  9. We will likely never know the particulars, whether Zimmerman pulled his gun and provoked in Martin a desperate act of self-defense, or, whether Martin threw a first punch to the face. if it's the latter then Zimmerman's story falls in place, and I agree with the verdict.

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    1. Ah, so Trayvon had no right to defend himself against a guy stalking him with a gun.

      Now suppose instead of punching Zimmerman in the face, Trayvon pulled out a gun and shot the guy who was stalking him. Wouldn't that be self-defense too?

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    2. No. It would be murder.

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    3. So it's not murder when a guy grabs a gun, chases an unarmed kid, then shoots him when he tries to defend himself.

      But it is murder if the guy being chased has got a gun too. Funny how those "Stand Your Ground" laws work.

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    4. @10:05 & @11:08 simply need to read the court transcripts. St. Skittles was back at his own front door talking to his girl-friend on the phone, by her own admission, before he went back to confront or perhaps "jump" Z-man. Or you can believe the narrative you made up or was spoon fed to you by your favorite biased news source.

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    5. Let's take your suggestion 10:05 and throw in some hypotheticals. (I always like to oblige Bob by bringing out his buddies from Team Zimm)

      We have to assume Trayvon did not run after killing the neighborhood watchman (who was armed only with a pistol and doing a job on behalf of his neighborhood while on the way to the store...instead or returning from it). We also have to assume the police, already on their way, did not see Trayvon standing above a body, holding a gun and shoot him dead on the spot.

      Those are two big assumptions you have to make before Trayvon can plead anything.

      The case of a black boy on suspension from school shooting a neighborhood watchman doing his duty is not going to attract much attention. Unless the DA decides to go for the death penalty. He will have to get Trayvon certified as an adult, which he will use Trayvon's iffy school records, texts, and thuggish clothes in so doing.

      Absent national attention Trayvon Martin will get the best legal defense his truck driver father and bureaucrat mother can afford. Trayvon's parents are not likely to be able to afford the best legal help.

      The lawyer may convince the kid to plead down. The lawyer's leverage with the DA would be the comments on the Zimmerman/Police Dispatcher tapes. This assumes anyone finds out about the tapes and the lawyer is given access to them.

      Trayvon or the DA (more likely the DA...he's a Republican) refuses a plea deal and the case goes to trial. Trayvon pleads self defense.

      A jury of 12 will be selected and it will likely look very much like the 6 selected in the Zimmerman trial.

      Since Martin shoots Zimmerman there is likely no prolonged scuffle so neighborhood witnesses will be few and far between if any exist at all. The only witness Martin will be able to call to prove he felt threatened will be the girl he spoke to on the phone, Rachel Jeantel.

      Trayvon could testify himself, probably against his lawyer's advice. My guess is the first question out of the DA's mouth would be "How long have you been smoking marijuana?"

      A parade of neighbors will be brought to the stand to portray George Zimmerman as the helpful young fellow who started the neighborhood watch program. The woman who had the home invasion and was comforted by Zimmerman will draw riveted attention from the jury.

      The fact is the legal grounds for Martin to get off on a self defense claim are the same as those available to Zimmerman. The difference is that Martin, unlike Zimmerman, would never have been allowed to walk away from the police station the night of the killing if he ever got to the police station alive. The only people with the knowledge that Zimmerman was a neighborhood wanna be cop with a questionable past would be the police, and the degree to which that past was ever discovered would depend on the quality and aggressiveness of the lawyer Martin's parents hired.

      You want another hypothetical? If Zimmerman and Martin were both the same race, black or white, virtually nobody outside central Florida would have ever have heard of this case at all.

      You want my final hypothetical? If Zimmerman was black and Martin had been white you wouldn't have heard of the case either. But Zimmerman would be in jail. Convicted at a minimum of manslaughter.

      Because when you get right down to it, race is a huge variable in society and criminal justice.

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    6. "St. Skittles was back at his own front door talking to his girl-friend on the phone, by her own admission, before he went back to confront or perhaps "jump" Z-man."

      Wow! I guess the Zimmerman Defense Team gets to make up its own reality now.

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    7. The reality is that by using a sarcastic term to refer to a dead teenager 11:16 proves, in his mind, black lives don't matter.

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  10. I don't see how this helps Mrs. clinton's campaign!

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    1. Silly boy. Bob's traffic count is lagging so it's time to bring out the Zimmerman Defense Team again.

      After all, dead horses can never be beaten enough on The Daily Howler.

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    2. Dead horse beating advances progressive causes. Or is it waving the bloody Trayvon hoodie is part of our Howler heritage? We don't know.

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  11. What a load. If Martin had claimed self defense he would have to deal with the four minutes and his claim would fail on that basis. If he attacked Zimmerman sooner and the four minutes had not elapsed, there would be phone call evidence and he would stand a chance of acquittal. As it is, the evidence showed Martin chose to attack someone after provoking him by glaring at him and circling his truck earlier. He didn't realize his victim had a gun. Fortunately Zimmerman was armed.

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  12. Stand your ground against bankers and Wall Street.
    I'm tired of these thugs always getting away with it.

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    1. Says you and other occupy hipsters typing from your iPhones.

      Delete
    2. @8:54 Can you spell out your argument on how having an iPhone (ie dough) takes away your credibility as a critic of capitalism? Lots of detail, please.
      Also, good to hear that hipsters are on board. I figured they'd be for free-range banking.

      Delete
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