If you have any doubt that Sean Hannity is a bigot whose only interest in the Eric Garner or Ferguson case is how he can denigrate African Americans, check out his hideous behavior toward Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton as she tried to explain her position on the issues raised in the police killings of unarmed Michael Brown and Eric Garner.
Norton repeatedly tried to explain to Hannity that she was uninterested in the particulars of the Ferguson case because, she said, she wanted to focus on the larger issues it raised. “My view is that wherever you stand on, whether it’s racism, whether who struck John, we are losing the big picture. The big picture and the reason I think young people are in the streets is because of the stops, the stops on the street for people who happen to be black, often, that it has become routine. This is a opportunity for a conversation between police departments and their own communities. And that is what I am hoping come out of this, not more who struck John and the evidence.”
Conversation? Hannity could not have cared less about conversation. His only goal seemed to be to vilify the Congressional Black Caucus for having spoken out in protest of the Ferguson grand jury’s decision not to indict Officer Darren Wilson who had shot and killed Michael Brown.
Ignoring what Norton said and what she wanted to talk about, Hannity kept badgering about the Ferguson evidence in order to belittle her. “Let me explain to you what the grand jury heard because that’s called evidence. …Why would people in Congress, lawmakers, advance what is clearly, based on the evidence, a lie?”
Hannity's implication was plain: The CBC, including Norton, were ignoring the truth in order to play the race card. It struck me as a classic case of projection.
I so wish Norton had called him out on that. But instead, she said, “Now, is your problem that you couldn’t get any of them to come on to explain themselves? ‘Cause I didn’t do any of that and I didn’t say any of that.” Again, Norton tried to explain her concern.
And again Hannity tried to demean Norton. “No, the truth isn’t your concern?” Hannity asked in his bullyboy voice. “Evidence isn’t your concern?”
“People who have other concerns – have them on your show!” Norton shouted.
As if he hadn’t been condescending enough already, Hannity “asked” if the “lesson to be learned” from Ferguson was that people “shouldn’t rob stores, intimidate clerks, fight for cops’ guns and charge at them like football players with their heads down.” He all but said the lesson was that African Americans shouldn’t get too uppity. Because let’s not forget that in April, Hannity was promoting lawlessness and violence against law enforcers by white rancher Cliven Bundy who just happened to turn out to be a major racist.
Norton said that the “larger lesson” was the relationship between law enforcement and the communities they police.
Now, you would think that would be something Hannity could get behind. But again, he tried to humiliate. He said scornfully, “I hope you’ll take the time to read evidence in the case before you talk about the case. I think it would be helpful.”
Norton reiterated that she hasn’t talked about the case but the larger issues raised by it – facts that the supposedly fact-loving Hannity refused to acknowledge.
“Don’t put what you want to put on me on me, ‘cause I’ll come right back at you,” Norton shouted.
“You can come back at me all you want,” Hannity said patronizingly. “Maybe you should read laws before you pass ‘em and maybe you should read about the case’s evidence before you comment on it.”
Or here’s an idea. Maybe Hannity should listen to what his guest is saying instead of just trying to racially smear her.
And once again, Warner has libeled Rep. Holmes Norton. I’m really not sure why he keeps doubling down on this.
I am always interested in other peoples opinions even if they do not agree with me, as long as they are telling me the truth. What I don’t like is when they lie to me. I do not think that you are lying Jack. I think you really believe what you are writing. I respect your opinion. On the other hand I do not believe Norton. I think she was trying to stir up racial unrest in Ferguson. I think she was lying to Hannity.
So instead of talking over her and saying the same thing over and over— “What?!? You don’t believe this CONCERNS you?!? You haven’t even read the EVIDENCE?!? The EVIDENCE doesn’t MATTER?!?” while the woman is trying to make her point, he could have shut his big mouth for a second and let her explain her position, which would have made him look like a reasonable, intelligent human willing to discuss the issue.
Then, he could have asked her to cite the situations in which “all” these black men have been stopped illegally or inappropriately, or at least some of them. And THEN, if she had nothing to offer, he could have torn her to shreds without having to yell, or shout her down, or otherwise look stupid. Or, if she could cite specific cases, then he could have conceded that there apparently IS an issue that needs to be discussed, but that it should be done via due process, not by allowing mobs to trash cities across the country.
But no, he came across as another shrieking loudmouth, of which there are already too many, crapping up our airwaves..
Peoples business have been destroyed, people that had nothing at all to do with the incident with Michael Brown. Do you think that advances race relations or do you think that is harmful to race relations?
Do you know anyone who would want to open a business in Ferguson now?
When race baiters such as `Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton or Louis Farrakhan or Eleanor Norton come in and stir up racial hatred that leads to riots, it does not advance race relations. It sets race relations back.
This woman does not care about the facts. She does not care about the damage that she is doing. She admitted that she did not care about the facts of the case. She just doesn’t care.
I hope this helps you to understand it. If not maybe you need to go to some learning annex.
If I understand what he’s been doing here correctly, in the best case scenario, he’s extremely misinformed on these issues and has been unwittingly writing extremely offensive and destructive comments. Assuming that’s the case, my advice to him to issue a written apology to Rep. Holmes Norton and begin attending courses to learn about these issues should have been received with something along the lines of gratitude and appreciation. But that assumes he’s here for constructive purposes, in spite of the horrifying and repeated destructive language he employed.
On the other hand, it’s also possible that Warner is fully aware of what these issues are and is simply trolling this site on behalf of an entity like Fox News. In that event, he would be acting in a deliberately offensive manner just to try to stir people’s anger. And in that case, he would be quite hypocritical to project his own offensive behavior onto others who are trying to get him to act in an appropriate manner.
In either scenario, it’s extremely odd to hear him asserting that having his offensive behavior corrected is somehow offensive to him. It’s also extremely ironic.
I’m also puzzled that Warner hasn’t copied us on the apology to Rep. Holmes Norton he must have sent by now.
A thug and a bully and robber robes a store. He ruffs up the store owner. Then he attacked a policeman who at first was only telling him to walk on the sidewalk instead of the middle of the street. He tries to grab the policeman’s gun attacks the policeman. The policeman who had never even had to fire his gun before had to shoot him.
Then the race baiters move in to incite a mob. The thug’s gang member step father yells instructions to the mob to burn the bitch down. They destroy peoples businesses that had nothing to do with the case. They set fires and destroy the town.
Norton had made comments other than what she said on Hannity. She did not want Browns death to be in vain. She was using to promote her political agenda.
She was using it to promote tension and racial strife.
She did not care about the truth. She did not care about the facts of the case. She did not care about the riots. She was only interested in what she was trying to promote. She should apologies to us, not the other way around.
She is not concerned with the policeman who Brown attacked and tried to grab his gun. The riots and fires did long term damage to Ferguson. It may never fully recover. Would you anyone want to locate a business there now? This woman is only interested in advancing her political agenda. She does not care about the facts or who gets hurt.
I have to ask if you have carefully listened to the Congresswoman’s statements. She never said she was talking about any other case. She is discussing her focus on the larger issue at hand – which deals with how communities of color and police departments interact. You seem to have completely missed that issue, or you seem to be working to try to miss it.
I do hope you’ll return to this site after you complete a few of those educational courses. You’ll find them to be quite enlightening, and they won’t even cost that much to attend. Most cities have quite good community college instructors who would be happy to help you learn – it will be good for you and good for everyone. I commend you in advance for the apology notes you’ll be posting here and to Rep. Holmes Norton, and I congratulate you on the wonderful journey of education you’re about to experience.
The fact that you see a black woman and hear her talking nostrums about communities and police needing to understand each other but then announce she’s got a ‘racially divisive agenda’ is unequivocally and blatantly racist, flat-out, no question. You’re an object lesson on what racism is.
you might as well just admit it because you’ve outed yourself very clearly in your comments here.
I don’t think that you buy it really. I just think that you are pretending to buy it.
Think about the timing of it. She just happened to bring up that other case that she had in mind when the case came up in Ferguson. The other case had nothing to do with Ferguson. It was just a coincident. That is why she was not interesting in the facts of the Ferguson case. She was talking about some other case.
No. I an not buying it.
Warner has still not provided any proof for his unfortunate comments about Rep. Holmes Norton and is now doubling down by repeating them. I am forced to remind Warner that he really shouldn’t be making such comments with no facts to back them up, and that good manners require that he not only make a humble apology for them here but also send a personal apology to Rep. Holmes Norton in writing. I’m sure he’s about to get working on that today.
In the meantime, we should again note that Eleanor Holmes Norton has no “agenda of trying to cause divisiveness and racial strife”. Rather, her history is the opposite – of trying to bring people of all races together in a human way where they can respect each other. She never said that “she did not care” about the Brown case. She said that her concern was not the minutiae of one case, but of the larger issue of how communities of color and police departments co-exist with each other. Warner apparently failed to understand this concept, which is why his upcoming coursework will be important.
Warner then makes a blanket condemnation of Democrat politicans as “used to pandering to the ignorant” and somehow unable to handle “tough questions”. This is a strange comment. Because she wasn’t being pandered to here – she was being treated rudely and snidely by Sean Hannity, who refused to let her finish speaking at any point before he talked or shouted over her in a tantrum that was memorable even for him. The sheer seething that could be detected from him by the end of the segment was actually quite alarming.
In Warner’s earlier non-response, he goes on at length about the suffering of the community of Ferguson in the face of the riots and civil unrest that happened there. But then he makes the strange assumption that Eleanor Holmes Norton “could not care less about those people.” This is another unsupported statement, and another reason why Warner really needs to be getting to work on that humble apology.
Warner also makes the mistake of bringing up Officer Darren Wilson’s history. One wonders if Warner is aware of Officer Wilson’s earlier work with the Jennings Police Department, which had to be completely disbanded in 2011 due to endemic corruption and charges of racism. I don’t know anyone who has said that Officer Wilson was “out trying to hunt and kill blacks”, but it would be understandable to see him predisposed to have a problem with minorities. It’s the same issue of George Zimmerman assuming that Trayvon Martin was up to no good just because he was a black kid wearing a hoodie. It’s the same issue of the police profiling a black man driving a nice car in the wrong neighborhood. (The obvious crime of “driving while black”, etc…)
Warner needs to know the real question about hostility here is one he needs to ask himself. He has injected himself into a conversation so he could say several fairly offensive things about Eleanor Holmes Norton, a congresswoman who has spent her life trying to bring people together and heal the various racial divides we have all endured. Making such angry and offensive comments is not “telling it like it is”, no matter whether Rush Limbaugh told him that along with the old Limbaugh saw of “Somebody had to do it!” As Warner himself has stated, it doesn’t work that way and it’s really not that hard to understand.
She admitted that she did not care about the facts of the case.
She like most Democrats is used to pandering to the ignorant. When someone asks her tough questions she gets very irritated.
It is not really all that hard to understand.
This Long Island Lolito is a smart mouth street thug. Ask any of his former classmates and staffers at the KCSB radio station in CA. They remember him like it was yesterday.
He was trouble the day he was born. His parents should have gave him up to another family, or committed him to a mental hospital to seek treatment for his wreckless behavior.
He should be behind bars for some of the things he’s done, and he knows it. He would pass out cold on the studio floor if all the vile things that he has done became public knowledge.
His audience is unaware of his true nature. Inside that Boy Scout image is an evil man. A dark soul that would send shivers up and down your spine. He is not well liked in the broadcasting industry, except for a few close friends. They know what he’s really like.
We rather see him ex-communicated from the Catholic church. His kind is what’s wrong with the church. Maybe the masses should start a letter writing campaign asking the Vatican to throw him out of the church.
http://w2.vatican.va/content/vatican/it.html
Hear! Hear!
Kevin’s typically respectful responses to Warner’s weirdly off-the-mark posts make me wonder about Warner’s age. Kevin often steps in when a teenager logs on to defend the versions of history presented on Fox. I suspect that he (Kevin) is a teacher. And a d*** good one.
While most of these teenagers – like most of their elders who believe anything heard on Fox – are wary of actually engaging in a debate, I do remember a young girl who accepted the challenge of debating with Kevin. I printed that exchange because she made some original points that addressed the queries raised by Kevin. IOW, she didn’t limit her contributions to repeating what she’d heard elsewhere.
How about it, Warner? Are you man enough to actually address the substance of Kevin’s posts or will you do a Hannity on us and throw a tantrum?
I thought Hannity was contemptuous toward Norton from the start. But the reason I think he should be fired is because he wanted to use her as fodder for a racial firefight. He refused to pay any attention to what she was trying to say, which was really quite inclusive and could have been healing, in order to keep suggesting that she had a racial chip on her shoulder that kept her from caring about the facts of the Michael Brown case. In reality, it was Hannity who refused to learn the facts and that was because he wanted to use an older, African American Congresswoman as a pawn in his personal race war against all things Democratic and liberal.
Oh, and say hi to Irena for us. Or is it Mark and the Dollar gang?
Anyway Eleanor Norton could not care less about those people who lost every thing. She just doesn’t care what damage her false narrative can cause. She has a political agenda. She is trying to stir up racial tension and strife. She even admitted that she does not care about the facts. Listen to the interview.
You know Officer Wilson had been on the force for several years. He had never used his gun before.
He was not out trying to hunt and kill blacks.
Why the hostility against me? I am just telling it like it is. Somebody had to do it.
Erich
Limbaugh himself has gone on the record as saying that he thinks that somehow the entire Democrat party is in disarray. The actual evidence is that the GOP is badly split within itself, as Limbaugh’s own regular attacks have shown. There’s a real war for the soul of the party going on – between the pragmatists who want to be able to actually govern and get something done, and the flamethrowers like Ted Cruz who just want to say the most outrageous thing possible and get their own show on Fox News in a couple of years. Limbaugh has also somehow replayed the 2012 election (where he and others including Scott Rasmussen, Karl Rove, Dick Morris and many others were proven horribly wrong) to some kind of fluke event where the GOP only lost because 4 million GOP voters stayed home. Of course, Limbaugh forgets how Mitt Romney systematically and repeatedly alienated women, Chicanos, and anyone who wasn’t in his income bracket, to the point that the statistical breakup of the 2012 election was quite shocking. Limbaugh assumes that a much harder right wing candidate would somehow get more votes, forgetting that this candidate would lose all the pragmatic GOP votes as well as anyone that wasn’t all the way on the right – thus insuring that such a candidate (like Newt Gingrich) would be crushed in a general election.
And that’s just two of the strange right wing narrative lapses we’ve been hearing lately. I will say I enjoyed Limbaugh’s latest fantasy tangent – where we’re somehow in trouble due to declining population, which he blames on abortion. Right. Nothing about how the population was bound to decline after the Baby Boom, particularly as more and more people have chosen to wait longer before having kids, and have had fewer kids, if any. But in the alternate reality of Limbaugh Land, this is somehow yet another reason to attack women.
Now, these tangents are not the focus of this article and I don’t mean to derail it in any way – but they do point up the constant effort by Limbaugh, his lackeys and copycats in right wing radio (like Hannity), and Fox News to present a completely false rendition of our collective history. It is absolutely necessary for Ellen and this site to continue to stand against these rewrites, and to maintain the actual facts. It’s not just necessary for our sanity now, but for the sake of posterity. Fifty years from now, when the successors of Limbaugh and Fox News try to tell their version of history, we will need to be able to point to the actual historical record and walk them back every time. Thanks to Ellen’s work here, we will be able to do so with a good reference source.
I’m touched by Warner’s concern that he believes I should attend a community college. But I can assure him that will not be necessary – I hold a Bachelor of Arts Degree from a 4 year university – which studies included extensive historical studies and Peace & Conflict Studies, as well as plenty of study of US politics and media. I wonder if Warner can say the same? (I note that neither Sean Hannity nor Rush Limbaugh can – and their usual comments tend to indicate a strong level of ignorance in addition to their regrettable bias.) I had recommended that he enroll in some courses as his posts indicate that he has not actually studied these issues and could well benefit from taking the time to do so – at least before submitting posts in the manner that he has done here. As it is, the act of simply repeating the tropes of uninformed right wing pundits does not speak well for Warner’s own grasp of these issues. This is a wonderful teachable moment here for Warner and I hope he’ll take it to heart.
Regarding Eleanor Holmes Norton’s comments, I have to ask Warner if he actually listened to what she was saying. I wonder where he got the idea that she was trying to “promote racial strife and hatred” and I challenge Warner to provide some proof of that unfortunate statement. Since no proof actually exists, I’m sure Warner will do the right thing and humbly apologize to Rep. Holmes Norton here and of course in writing to her office. And if Warner actually listens for a moment to her comments, he will find that she wasn’t saying that she “didn’t care” about this case – what she said was that she was focusing on the larger concern about how communities of color and police departments interact. She was discussing the problem that black men are regularly detained for things like “driving while black”. She was discussing the very prejudices that led George Zimmerman to stalk and kill Trayvon Martin last year. She was saying that the Brown and Garner killings provide an opportunity for police departments and communities of color to have a dialogue about this situation before more of these deaths occur. Sean Hannity’s intent wasn’t to discuss that larger concern but instead to try to confront Rep. Holmes Norton on a congressional display that did not include her and to ask her about the minutiae of the Brown case. Rep. Holmes Norton was quite clear that she hasn’t studied the transcripts of this case, but that she is focused on the common problem of racial profiling and how police departments and communities of color deal with each other. Because a real dialogue between police and these communities could very well make riots like Ferguson’s a thing of the past. The people in Ferguson didn’t riot because Michael Brown was killed. They rioted because they saw a situation where an unarmed black man was shot to death and from the moment that it was first discussed, it was clear that the local DA wasn’t going to see the police officer indicted. This was a feeling from the community that “the fix was in”, regardless of the conflicting testimony of the various witnesses who spoke to the Grand Jury. And this perception was built from a long history of situations where minorities have been profiled, targeted, attacked, arrested and yes, killed, usually with impunity. Rep. Holmes Norton focus has been on trying to get the communities and the police past this – by having them actually engage each other, on a human level. Sadly, pundits like Sean Hannity have no interest in such a dialogue, and the moment Rep. Holmes Norton brought it up, Hannity lost his temper and spent the rest of the segment angrily dismissing everything she said. The sheer contempt with which he concluded the segment is likely the reason for Ellen’s headline on this article – it’s the sort of thing that one would hope Hannity would apologize for, but based on his prior history (and that of Rush Limbaugh), we shouldn’t hold our breath.
Finally, Warner should be aware that Rep Holmes Norton was actually trying to answer Hannity before he rudely cut her off, talked over her, and then began making the smuggest, snidest comments he could come up with. As one would hope Warner will learn through his upcoming studies, and as one would think Hannity should already have known, it doesn’t work that way. Warner should re-read his own posts here – that’s the one line that does make sense – albeit not in the manner I believe he intended.
Except that would take too much effort.