On Tuesday, I reported that Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, will prosecute the case against Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, the suspect in the May 25 homicide of George Floyd. As part of the report, I felt obliged to include Ellison’s long history with the Jewish community in the US and the State of Israel, and, last but not least, his long association with the worst Jew hater in America, certainly the worst Calypso singer Jew hater, Louis Farrakhan (Farrakhan Defender Keith Ellison to Prosecute Minneapolis Cop in George Floyd’s Homicide).
Reader Shandre Delaney emailed The Jewish Press Online a stern rebuke:
“Your title to the article on Keith Ellison was very offensive and racist. Him prosecuting killer cops has nothing to do with his support of Farrakhan. Your article and the title should have been focused solely on the oppression and police murder of unarmed black men. But instead you chose to lead and write with hate. In these troubling times, it is time for the divisive rhetoric to cease and desist!”
Ms. Delaney, I disagree wholeheartedly with every point you made in your email, but I welcome it as an opportunity to clarify the difference between honest journalism and spreading hatred.
The Jewish Press Online is for the most part—with noted exceptions—not a first-tier news gathering organization such as the big television networks or news agencies. We focus on a specific readership: Jews around the world who are pro-Zionist and right-leaning. They come to us not only for the straight news – they get ample supplies of those from the big guys – but for our particular take on the news. We never lie about the news, we verify the news before we publish, but our approach is to delineate the Jewish and Israeli perspectives of a given story so that our readers get to see which way is up according to our view.
Minnesota AG Keith Ellison politicized the George Floyd case – a fact you disregarded in your email, as most news outlets have done. Hennepin County, whose county seat is the great city of Minneapolis, already has a prosecutor: attorney Mike Freeman, who is white. But Minnesota Governor Tim Walz preferred Ellison, apparently because Floyd’s family and local politicians demanded him instead. This means that from the start, the George Floyd case will be prosecuted not on the foundations of pure facts, but on the political needs of the powers that be in the great state of Minnesota.
This fact became even clearer when Ellison decided to elevate the charges against Chauvin from third- to second-degree murder, with an open promise to raise the charges to first-degree murder should evidence supporting this charge become available in the investigation.
I’d like to clarify: to my best understanding of US law, third-degree murder, a.k.a. voluntary manslaughter, covers an intentional killing that involves no prior intent to kill, and which was committed under such circumstances that would “cause a reasonable person to become emotionally or mentally disturbed.” Any capable prosecutor can get Chauvin convicted on this level with one hand tied behind his back and the other doing the NY Times crossword puzzle. All he would have to do is show the video, it’s all there, close to 9 minutes of a terrifying snuff film in which the victim is begging for mercy and the killer cop keeps pressing his knee against his throat.
To prove second-degree murder, AG Ellison will have to show that the same act was not merely a brazen disregard of a man’s life by a raging police officer, but that it was intentional murder with malice aforethought. In other words, that when Chauvin dropped Floyd to the side of the curb, he was determined to kill him. Despite what millions of outraged Americans may be thinking, this hurdle is very high, and to jump over it, the prosecution would have to perform some acrobatics that may or may not be dedicated to the pursuit of justice.
Then, to get a first-degree murder conviction, Ellison would have to prove that Chauvin left home that day with a plan in mind to kill him some African American civilian.
All of which supports my view that Keith Ellison is using George Floyd’s tragic death as a political stepping stone, thus putting in question your admonition that I should have “focused solely on the oppression and police murder of unarmed black men.” Ellison himself is not focused solely on the task you assigned to me, he is a politician, an officer Chauvin, as mean and dangerous as he is, serves as fodder for Ellison rise to the top of the DNC heap (which he failed to reach in an honest vote).
And so, since Keith Ellison is a politician, it is incumbent on me to educate my readers – you included, Ms. Delaney – on his political past which includes defending the most offensive Calypso singer in the genre’s history, Louis Farrakhan. To be fair, I embedded in my story on Ellison his interview on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, where he defended himself against those charges.
This is why, by the way, I also mention every time Al Sharpton comes up in a report, his leadership of the 1991 pogrom against the Jews of Crown Heights, New York. Because Al Sharpton is a politician, and as such I want my readers to remain aware of the depths of darkness into which he is capable of sinking.
Back in July 2000, Republican presidential candidate GW Bush (I voted for Al Gore) spoke to the NAACP about “the soft bigotry of low expectations.” Bush was critical of an educational system that did everything for African American students except insist that they learn. I believe your demand that a legitimate publication ignore the shadowy past of a Keith Ellison and concentrate only on the charges he will try to prove would inevitably result in the African American community being represented by even more clandestine bigots such as Ellison, Sharpton and Jesse Jackson. Not gonna’ do it.