45 States Have Statutes Criminalizing Hate Crimes

...And Texas ain't one of 'em.

Recently Michael Moore hit CNN with an angry rant about how the mainstream media does not tell the truth. Not so much a matter of individual facts as it is a matter of corporate embedded cream cheese reporting. Because of laziness and corporate bias; daily newspapers, television networks, radio stations and cable news channels refuse to take a chance in offending The RIght for fear of a monetary backlash. Here is one egregious case in point.

A Houston Chronicle article by media editor James T. Campbell (who is an African-American) appeared in the editorial section of the Sunday paper, Teen an unwitting player in a story that touched us about what happened to one Hispanic boy here in Houston because he was Hispanic. A recap of the story from Wikipedia:

During a party held at the Sons family house, two students who attended Klein Collins High School, David Henry Tuck of the 3400 block of Nutwood,[3] and Keith Robert Turner of the 21000 block of Star Grass,[3] brutally beat, tortured, and sodomized David Ritcheson, a 17-year old Hispanic Klein Collins student and former running back for the school football team.

Tuck and Turner were both under the influence of recreational drugs, and said they were told that Ritcheson, also under the influence of drugs[5] tried to kiss a 12 year old girl, Danielle Sons.[6] Danielle's statement threw Tuck into a rage, and Tuck punched Ritcheson. The first punch was so powerful it broke Ritcheson's cheekbone and knocked him unconscious, stated Red Duke, the emergency physician who treated him. Tuck and Turner dragged the teenager outside, stripped him naked, burned the victim with cigarettes, choked him with a gardening hose and proceeded to engrave a swastika into the victim's chest. Tuck kicked Ritcheson with steel-toed boots and violently kicked a PVC pipe up his rectum several inches while yelling racial slurs. After the sodomy ended, the perpetrators poured bleach on the victim's body to conceal the evidence of the crime. The vicious attack lasted for over an hour. Tuck, who was described by prosecutors as a white supremacist is eligible for parole in 25 years. 18 year old Ritchenson recently committed suicide by jumping from a Carnival Cruise ship off of Cozumel Mexico.

Recapping the story Campbell printed the letter below as an example of the angst directed at the Chronicle from its readership:

"There are probably hundreds of people that kill themselves each day, and yet the Houston Chronicle devotes half a page in a section to one troubled teen," a reader wrote. "Every parent that has a child commit suicide ought to sue the Houston Chronicle for being biased in its reporting! Why did one young man get so much publicity? Was it because he was loved more by his parents than other bereaved parents loved their lost child? No, not in the least. Ritcheson is the poster child for a hate crimes bill — a piece of useless legislation that will do more to harm free speech than the American Civil Liberties Union ever dreamed ... "

James T. Campbell responded, “The first e-mailer's complaints about our coverage of Ritcheson's suicide and his being the "poster child for a hate crimes bill," is a fair point, but ignores the obvious in saying he was just one troubled teen."

This is one of literally millions of such examples. Campbell should have told the truth. That anyone taking the time to write a newspaper to decry this story even appearing, coupled with such angst toward Hate Crime Legislation ARE bigoted racist pigs who are the ones we should be taking about deporting to someplace more to their liking. Like the friggin' Moon. But rather we hear from Campbell that they made ‘a fair point”.

Though no mainstream editorial board will allow the truth to be told about that swath of tens of millions of Conservative racists running through the Old South up into the mountain States, the least Campbell could have done was print that person's damn name. For if I write a letter to the editor of the Houston Chronicle with a liberal slant, they are going to print my full name and town so these very apologists for White Supremacist know where my children live. It pisses me off.