17yr old black kid shot and killed for walking in white suburbia?

[natina]

Zimmerman Sued for 'Dodging' $66K Bill
Security firm: Trayvon Martin's killer owes us money

An Orlando company is suing George Zimmerman over a partly unpaid security bill following his release from jail on $1 million bail, Fox News reports. Associated Investigative Services Inc. says Zimmerman failed to fully pay $66,000 for 21 days of security, including a "jail escort plan" involving two vehicles, body armor, and a hat-and-glasses disguise. But Zimmerman's lawyer says his client paid quite enough—$40,000—and never signed a contract. Plus Zimmerman was in jail for seven of those 21 days.
But back to the "escort plan": Upon his release, Zimmerman would be given concealed body armor and driven away by an armed guard in a vehicle pre-scanned for GPS tracking devices, reports the Miami Herald. Next he would don a disguise in a tourist resort bathroom and be taken in another vehicle to a "safe house." Bodyguards would look for paparazzi, assailants, and “aerial” and "negative counter surveillance" the whole time. It's unclear whether the plan was carried out, but Trayvon Martin's killer is free on bail and living with his wife somewhere in Seminole County, Fla. (Zimmerman is filing a lawsuit himself—against NBC.)
http://www.newser.com/story/160086/z...mpaign=rss_3_2

[giovanni_hotel]

LOL. Would have been cheaper to keep that loser locked up until trial.

[jefferson82]

Theres a lot of very intolerant people on here that think they know all of the details about the case. There is a lot of murkiness to this case and a lot of viewer "detectives" that think they know everything based on biased reporting. MSNBC is a hack channel..nothing serious or real...almost onion news network if it wasn't trying to act real.

[TSLoverIB]

Could not agree more jefferson, yet most of these people no everything about nothing.

Wait until the trial comes to light, the real evidence will come to light.

[giovanni_hotel]

Theres a lot of very intolerant people on here that think they know all of the details about the case. There is a lot of murkiness to this case and a lot of viewer "detectives" that think they know everything based on biased reporting. MSNBC is a hack channel..nothing serious or real...almost onion news network if it wasn't trying to act real.

MSNBC is a real cable news station with real investigative reporters. From a journalistic standpoint, they are 100x better than Faux News.

MSNBC has conservatives on all the time, and former Republican Congressman Joe Scarborough hosts a daily morning show where he routinely rips the POTUS and his economic and domestic policies.


I think most people have a firm grip on the basic facts; Zimmerman profiled and stalked this kid, confronted Trayvon after leaving his car, they fought and Zimmerman was getting his ass kicked before Zimmerman shot him to death.

Zimmerman claimed self defense under the SYG law in Florida, except the law doesn't really apply if the 'victim' was initially safe inside his own car.

[fivekatz]

Every one is due their day in court but at a minimum the local LE in Florida did a shameful job in this case in terms of how long it took to even bring charges against the accused.

Lot of ugly over tones in this case and I hate to think it but if the roles had been reversed IMO the African-American kid would have been arrested on the spot for shooting Zimmerman armed with a hoodie and skittles.

MSNBC FWIW does do a lot of op-ed shows but there is little evidence that they tailor their hard news reports with the extreme partisan slant that FUX does. While the op-eds like Ed Schultz, Politics Nation, TRMS are designed to give progressive an echo chamber and I may be subject to bias but I just don't see the Zimmerman shooting in that genre, as much because of how LE handled the case as anything else.

[natina]

Fox News Viewers Believe the Darndest Things, Study Finds


(Dec. 17) -- Fair and balanced ... and factually incorrect?

A newly released study out of the University of Maryland concludes that viewers of the Fox News Channel were "significantly more likely" to believe a host of factually incorrect information than viewers who watched other television news organizations.

Fox is by no means the only media outlet guilty of spreading what the study considers misniformation, but the channel's viewers were found to believe incorrect views on matters of established fact in much higher percentages than those peple who got their news of the world elsewhere.

Those who watched Fox News during the 2010 election cycle were significantly more likely than those who never watched it to believe that ...

... most economists estimate the stimulus caused job losses (12 points more likely).

... most economists have estimated the health care law will worsen the deficit (31 points more likely).

... the economy is getting worse (26 points more likely).

... most scientists do not agree that climate change is occurring (30 points more likely).

... the stimulus legislation did not include any tax cuts (14 points more likely).

... their own income taxes have gone up (14 points).

... the auto bailout only occurred under Obama (13 points).

... when TARP came up for a vote, most Republicans opposed it (12 points).

... it is not clear that Obama was born in the United States (31 points).

The study found that it wasn't just Republican Fox viewers who were swayed to believe the less-than-accurate information. Democratic viewers of the channel also more likely to believe those things, too.

Surge Desk's calls to the Fox News Channel for comment on the study were not returned.



http://www.aolnews.com/2010/12/17/fo...s-study-finds/

[natina]

FOX NEWS INSIDER: “Stuff Is Just Made Up”

Asked what most viewers and observers of Fox News would be surprised to learn about the controversial cable channel, a former insider from the world of Rupert Murdoch was quick with a response: “I don’t think people would believe it’s as concocted as it is; that stuff is just made up.”

Indeed, a former Fox News employee who recently agreed to talk with Media Matters confirmed what critics have been saying for years about Murdoch’s cable channel. Namely, that Fox News is run as a purely partisan operation, virtually every news story is actively spun by the staff, its primary goal is to prop up Republicans and knock down Democrats, and that staffers at Fox News routinely operate without the slightest regard for fairness or fact checking.

“It is their M.O. to undermine the administration and to undermine Democrats,” says the source. “They’re a propaganda outfit but they call themselves news.”

And that’s the word from inside Fox News.

Note the story here isn’t that Fox News leans right. Everyone knows the channel pushes a conservative-friendly version of the news. Everyone who’s been paying attention has known that since the channel’s inception more than a decade ago. The real story, and the real danger posed by the cable outlet, is that over time Fox News stopped simply leaning to the right and instead became an open and active political player, sort of one-part character assassin and one-part propagandist, depending on which party was in power. And that the operation thrives on fabrications and falsehoods.

[natina]

WARNING! BREAKING NEWS!:exposure to Fox News makes voters stupid, university study finds




exposure to Fox News makes voters stupid, university study finds


http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/12/1...voters-stupid/

The troublesome record of spin by conservative television station Fox News has long been a cause for concern to many Americans, who frequently allege that the nation's most viewed "news" network has the effect of dumbing down voters.

Turns out, they were right.

A University of Maryland study (PDF) published earlier this month found that people in the survey who had the most exposure to Fox News were more likely to believe falsehoods and rumors about national and world affairs when compared to those who paid attention to other news outlets.

In a summary carried by Alternet, the following falsehoods were most relayed by Fox News viewers:

91 percent believed the stimulus legislation lost jobs;

72 percent believed the health reform law will increase the deficit;

72 percent believed the economy is getting worse;

60 percent believed climate change is not occurring;

49 percent believed income taxes have gone up;

63 percent believed the stimulus legislation did not include any tax cuts;

56 percent believed Obama initiated the GM/Chrysler bailout;

38 percent believed that most Republicans opposed TARP;

63 percent believed Obama was not born in the U.S. (or that it is unclear).


The poll's findings seem to sync with those of an NBC News survey (PDF) taken during the height of America's health care reform debate, where Fox News viewers were found to be most likely to have believed wildly inaccurate interpretations of the legislation.


Related Link: exposure to Fox News makes voters stupid, university study finds

[natina]

Intelligence Study Links Low I.Q. To Prejudice, Racism, Conservatism



Are racists dumb? Do conservatives tend to be less intelligent than liberals? A provocative new study from Brock University in Ontario suggests the answer to both questions may be a qualified yes.

The study, published in Psychological Science, showed that people who score low on I.Q. tests in childhood are more likely to develop prejudiced beliefs and socially conservative politics in adulthood.

I.Q., or Intelligence quotient - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, is a score determined by standardized tests, but whether the tests truly reveal intelligence remains a topic of hot debate among psychologists.

Dr. Gordon Hodson, a professor of psychology at the university and the study's lead author, said the finding represented evidence of a vicious cycle: People of low intelligence gravitate toward socially conservative ideologies, which stress resistance to change and, in turn, prejudice, he told LiveScience.

Why might less intelligent people be drawn to conservative ideologies? Because such ideologies feature "structure and order" that make it easier to comprehend a complicated world, Dodson said. "Unfortunately, many of these features can also contribute to prejudice," he added.

Dr. Brian Nosek, a University of Virginia psychologist, echoed those sentiments.

"Reality is complicated and messy," he told The Huffington Post in an email. "Ideologies get rid of the messiness and impose a simpler solution. So, it may not be surprising that people with less cognitive capacity will be attracted to simplifying ideologies."



http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/0...n_1237796.html