Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

Fuck the extremist election deniers. What’s money for if not for keeping them out of office?

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

We still have time to mess this up!

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

Republicans can’t even be trusted with their own money.

Second rate reporter says what?

The most dangerous place for a black man in America is in a white man’s imagination.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

Republicans don’t trust women.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

Republicans: slavery is when you own me. freedom is when I own you.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

You can’t love your country only when you win.

This fight is for everything.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Because of wow. / Blatant Liars and the Lies They Tell

Blatant Liars and the Lies They Tell

by | 50 Comments

This post is in: , , , , , , ,

Remember the Washington Post “whitewashing” of officer Darren Wilson yesterday by Kimberly Kindy and Sari Horwitz? Their twitter feeds have been oddly silent the past 24 hours, and it might be because of this:

But Melinek told MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell on Wednesday that her comments had been taken “out of context” and that she believed the findings could be explained by other scenarios as well.

“What happens sometimes is when you get interviewed and you have a long conversation with a journalist, they’re going to take things out of context,” she said. “I made it very clear that we only have partial information here. We don’t have the scene information. We don’t have the police investigation. We don’t have all the witness statements. And you can’t interpret autopsy findings in a vacuum.”

She and O’Donnell then walked through a variety of alternative situations in which the gunshot residue found on Brown’s hand — the key finding that suggested Brown had been reaching for Wilson’s gun — could have gotten there.

“I’m not saying that Brown going for the gun is the only explanation. I’m saying the officer said he was going for the gun and the right thumb wound supports that,” Melinek. “I have limited information. It could also be consistent with other scenarios. That’s the important thing. That’s why the witnesses need to speak to the grand jury and the grand jury needs to hear all the unbiased testimony and compare those statements to the physical evidence.”

I’ve been asking Kimberly Kindy and Sari Horwitz for comment, but since they refuse to respond to anyone, I thought out I would hunt down the public editor and complain to that person. It turns out there isn’t one. That position has been replaced with a Reader Representative, which is mostly just customer service bs. Currently serving in that role is fashion editor Alison Conglianese (I think- I can’t find anyone after her). I’d ask her, but she seems super busy today:

I’m not a scarf man myself, so I can’t tell you if those are available on Amazon.

Journamamalism.

Reader Interactions

50Comments

  1. 1.

    JPL

    I read about the interview earlier. The selective leaks are harmful to justice whether this case or not. It’s sickening.

  2. 2.

    Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)

    I posted this below, but I’m excited enough to do it in what may be the active thread:

    I may have a job. It would involve doing scut work on an unclaimed property audit but that would at least be within my field. And they said it involves Microsoft Excel, which I’m very good at. So I’m excited. It’s a temp position but it’s one that has more relevancy to my search for a permanent job than teaching in China did so it will be nice to have on my resume.

    The downside is that it’s in LaCrosse, WI, which is about a 2 1/2 hour drive from Minneapolis. I wouldn’t really want to do that commute every day so if it comes through I may get a cheap apartment down there while it lasts.

    And, since the whole thing opened up talking with a Gopher Women’s Hockey connection down in Madison last weekend, it makes me even happier that I follow this team so obsessively.

  3. 3.

    satby

    And already the rightwingers are proclaiming this proves, PROVES “that thug got what he deserved”. If it was their white teenager, well lacking any empathy they can’t imagine that.

    And JPL is right, there was a time in this country where this kind of attempt to influence the jury wasn’t considered just another team sport, where all is fair as long as your team wins. The sheer hypocrisy of “it’s OK if my side is doing it, but it’s the worst miscarriage of justice evah if your side is” is sickening.

  4. 4.

    Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)

    @satby: I agree, but there are a lot of people complaining about this who lost their credibility on the subject when they were all in favor of everyone knowing the leaked testimony from the Barry Bonds grand jury. There are a whole lot of people who comment here that had best shut up.

  5. 5.

    satby

    @Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): Congrats! Things are looking up!

    Me too, I landed a part time gig after losing my other job three weeks ago. Not a lot of money, but it may be enough to keep me from going bankrupt and having to find new homes for all the critters, that’s my goal at this point.

  6. 6.

    kc

    Melinek spoke to Christine Byers, not the WaPo. This is what Byers printed in the St Louis Post-Dispatch:

    Dr. Judy Melinek, a forensic pathologist in San Francisco, said the autopsy “supports the fact that this guy is reaching for the gun, if he has gunpowder particulate material in the wound.” She added, “If he has his hand near the gun when it goes off, he’s going for the officer’s gun.”

    (emphasis mine)

  8. 8.

    Howard Beale IV

    If you though civil asset forfeiture couldn’t get any worse, look to Las Vegas-now home to a new prevously undisclosved varaint called (and I;m not making this up)….

    “Super Seal”!

    No, this is something Not As Seen on TV. Read it and be incredibly, thoroughly repulsed.

  10. 10.

    Cluttered Mind

    @satby: It’s not hypocrisy. They are being 100% true to their actual philosophy. The problem is that the philosophy in question is “Destroy the left by any means necessary”. If you just assume all Republicans and their supporters are aiming for that, and ignore whatever comes out of their mouths (or hands, on the internet), then it provides a useful lens for viewing all their actions. Accusations of hypocrisy or inconsistency are kind of pointless when levied against the right, because they only really have one objective and everything they do is in accordance with it. IOKIYAR isn’t hypocrisy to them because of this. And yes, this is horribly detrimental to our democracy to have one of the only two major parties in the country behave in such a manner.

  14. 14.

    MattF

    The powers that be have a dilemma– they need to get Darren Wilson freed and they need to avoid ‘trouble’ in Ferguson. The WaPo is just trying to be helpful, but I suspect its efforts are in vain.

  15. 15.

    Howard Beale IV

    @dmbeaster: Unfortunately, do you think the prosecutors who pulled this nonsense will face any penalties? How many Local/State/Federal Prosecutors lose their jobs/licenses/serve time for perpetrating frauds against the court? Look at that sniveling weasel Lanny Breuer, who when facing damning evidence that the day after the Frontline story came out against the TBTF Financial institutions he resigned?

    Breuer is the Mr. Morden to the US Citizens’s Vir Cotto.

  16. 16.

    Howard Beale IV

    @Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): Good luck with it. I’m somewhat surprised that given the unemployment rate in Minnesota is much lower than the rest of the US that you couldn’t find something locally unless your skills are rather ‘unique/rare’.

  20. 20.

    Glidwrith

    @kc: I don’t get this at all. At close range, with Wilson already yanking on him by the neck or collar, wouldn’t your hands already be near the gun? Wouldn’t you instinctively put your hand up to block, deflect or grab it? There’s no way that kid reached into the cab of the car and across Wilson to a snapped down holstered gun with the handle pointed into the seat. The only way Brown ‘went for the gun’ was because Wilson already had it out and in his face. There isn’t a person alive that wouldn’t try to keep it out of their face.

  22. 22.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    @satby: Congratulations to both of you! Here’s hoping it’s the first of even better news soon.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  23. 23.

    kc

    @Glidwrith:

    I don’t get this at all. At close range, with Wilson already yanking on him by the neck or collar, wouldn’t your hands already be near the gun?

    Absolutely. That’s what angered people about that statement that Byers printed. So now, in the O’Donnell interview, Melinek is acknowledging that the facts could indeed be consistent with other scenarios and is saying Christine Byers quoted her “out of context.”

    I don’t know if Melinek is just covering her butt in response to criticism of the quote, or if Byers really quoted her in a misleading way, but after Byer’s favorable-to-law enforcement tweet from August that didn’t “meet publication standards,” I would think her editor(s) would want to have a little talk with her about standards.

  24. 24.

    Lolis

    @Glidwrith:

    My roommate works for law enforcement, though now just as a trainer. He thinks Wilson was justified because he said if someone goes for your gun, you have a legal right to kill them. I pointed out that was a pretty convenient way to get away with killing an unarmed man and he didn’t have anything to say. He insisted cops don’t lie. Haha. These cops really think nobody has the right to question them.

  25. 25.

    FoxinSocks

    @satby:

    That’s great to hear! I’m echoing everyone else, but good luck! Back in 2010, within a few months my temp job landed me a very good permanent job.

    Also, I got your soap in the mail. Thank you!!

  26. 26.

    JPL

    @Glidwrith: That’s my thinking. Also Wilson felt danger for his life so rather than wait for backup, he just shoots towards Brown nine times and strikes him six times.

  29. 29.

    Mart

    @Lolis: You should agree with your roomate that if Brown was going for the gun, Wilson had the legal right to the first two “kill” shots while in the patrol car. Then ask him if Wilson mighta maybe just broke the law a little with the next ten shots after he got out of the car and Brown was running away?

  30. 30.

    Mnemosyne

    @kc:

    I find it pretty plausible that, in the course of a long interview, Melinek could have answered hypothetical questions about different possible scenarios that Byers cherry-picked to get to her preferred conclusion.

  33. 33.

    Mike J

    @Mart:

    Then ask him if Wilson mighta maybe just broke the law a little with the next ten shots after he got out of the car and Brown was running away?

    Missouri law explicitly gives officers the right to shoot at suspects fleeing a felony. Jaywalking was not a felony, but reaching for the cop’s gun would make everything the cop did legal.

  34. 34.

    scav

    So, basically, the WaPo’s Public Editor is a part-time flesh-based advertising fashion-bot pushing hashtags and blog posts on scarves? Well, clearly, knowing where your butter and allegiance truly is has finally been brilliantly instilled into the heights of journalism as practiced.

  35. 35.

    R. Johnston

    Even assuming for the sake of argument that the current cover story is not a nest of lies, if a homicidal lunatic pulls a gun on you for no reason at all other than you’re walking while black, what exactly is supposed to be wrong about reaching for that gun to knock or take it away? Especially if that homicidal lunatic is a cop, because cops are much more likely than anyone else to believe they’ll get away with shooting you.

    A cop who draws his gun on a boy for the crime of walking home loses his right to claim self-defense or any other justification for a shooting, or at least he should in any sane world.

  36. 36.

    burnspbesq

    @Howard Beale IV:

    There is a lot of highly relevant detail missing from that article.

    The involvement of the IRS throws the case into a completely different set of procedures. The IRS doesn’t do civil forfeiture. It does jeopardy assessments and jeopardy levies. See Internal Revenue Code section 6861 et seq. When it does a jeopardy assessment, it is required to issue a notice of deficiency within 90 days, so that the taxpayer can contest whether he/she/it actually owes the tax in a separate proceeding. In addition, there is a damages remedy for wrongful collection activity, under Internal Revenue Code Section 7433, with exclusive jurisdiction in the District Court.

    I’m not saying that anything that was done by IRS or DOJ was kosher. I’m saying that the linked article doesn’t contain nearly enough information to make any determination either way. You may want to think about cooling your jets for a bit.

  43. 43.

    Villago Delenda Est

    The narrative must be served, no matter what….

    Therefore, the WaPo needs to be nuked from space.

    Only way to be sure.

  44. 44.

    dmbeaster

    @Howard Beale IV:

    I would not expect them to face any noticeable consequences. It depends in part on the authorization for this procedure — if it came from the US attorney for that district, expect nothing. If it was some creative freebooting by an assistant, he may garner a reputation for cowboy tactics and receive some form of internal reprimand. The attorney may find future career options more limited because of that reputation. Although the prosecutors for the Ken Starr investigation were a bunch of third raters who had such reputations, ironically. They were still on the project when its original focus seemed over and done, and were still there because they were regarded as subpar so had not moved onto better opportunities, when the Lewinsky thing hit. They then botched the short-term follow up on that badly.

    The law unfortunately has a problem with zealous advocacy, since that is believed to be the obligation of counsel, if not one of the central tenets of being a lawyer. When it crosses the line, how do you then decide that it was so overly zealous as to merit punishment?

    And while you are thinking about this, remember John Yoo and the torture memos (and all of the other sycophants who argued for that crap), who is happily on the Berkeley faculty despite that advocacy that is just as indefensible.

  46. 46.

    dmbeaster

    @burnspbesq:

    I think that the opinion of the district court judge that the procedure adopted was “constitutionally abhorrent” is enough information in order to draw a conclusion. Plus the point is that the prosecutors sought binding forfeiture rulings pursuant to a secret filing and without any notice to the owner. There is no circumstance that permits that to be lawful.

  48. 48.

    NCSteve

    @Mike J: Total complete bullshit. What a Missouri statute says means dick given that the Supreme Court ruled in Tennessee v. Gardner, 471 U.S. 1 (1985) that a cop can’t gun down a fleeing suspect unless he has probable cause to believe that the suspect presents a significant threat of death or serious physical injury to the officer or others. When the perp is unarmed and running away on foot, that gets kinda hard to do unless you’re the Amazing Fucking Kreskin with the power to see into the minds of others.

    Taking the cop’s version of the facts as true, the “threat of death or serious injury” ended the second Brown was out of arm’s reach.

    That’s the reason for the claim Brown was “charging” him. (Because yeah, people on Teh Reefer Madness charge cops holding guns all the time!)

  49. 49.

    Mart

    @NCSteve: Thanks for the detailed explanation. My fellow white STL people splaining to me why the officer had all the reasons in the world to kill that thug is driving me nuts. Of course they think I am nuts already…

  50. 50.

    FrY10cK

    @Glidwrith: That is the most likely scenario. Unless you’re Pat Lang of Sic Semper Tyrannis or any other old-school southern white guy.

    I just read his take on the Wapo medical examiner article. I’m done reading his blog.

Comments are closed.