And why would I have more listeners?  Well that would be because of the puddin’ storm that arose over the weekend over comments I made on the show last week about crime and how you might want to deal with a predator that threatens you or your family. 

As examples we’ll use the Huffington post, a well known leftist website, and another named ournewsnow.com, a website with the slogan “The revolution will not be televised; whatever in the world that means, that titled their little bit about me thusly:  “Atlanta Talk Show Host Codes Race Killings.”  Both of these websites printed the following quote from me: 

"This town is starting to look like a garbage heap. And we got too damn many urban thugs, yo, ruining the quality of life for everybody. And I'll tell you what it's gonna take. You people, you are - you need to have a gun. You need to have training. You need to know how to use that gun. You need to get a permit to carry that gun. And you do in fact need to carry that gun and we need to see some dead thugs littering the landscape in Atlanta.

Well … that wasn’t exactly all I said.  Here’s the part they left off:

“We need to see the next guy that tries to carjack you shot dead right where he stands. We need more dead thugs in this city.”

These websites, you see, wanted to portray me as having called for people to simply get guns and start killing blacks.  They didn’t include the beginning of my comments where I referenced two violent carjackings in Atlanta, nor did they see fit to include that part of my statement that related to self defense.  No surprise.  If you have an agenda to push, you do whatever editing is necessary to keep your message on point.

The postings on these websites and others caused quite a lot of commentary across the Internet.  So, to all my new listeners ---- welcome to the Church of the Painful Truth!

The first to pick up on my comments was Media Matters, a left-wing Soros-funded website that casts itself as some sort of a watchdog warning the world about evil right-wingers in the media.  As soon as Media Matters posted my remarks they were picked up by Ed Schultz.  You remember Ed from a few weeks ago, don’t you? He’s the one who called Laura Ingraham a “right-wing slut” on his MSNBC television show.  That earned him a week-long suspension.  Nice talk, huh.  Calling someone a slut on national TV because you don’t agree with their politics?  Ed did apologize for that comment, and I had nice things to say about him at the time about his apology. 

Now here’s what Ed Schultz did on his TV show last week. 

Shultz picked up on my comments from Media Matters and then … before he played it on his MSNBC show … he did a little creative editing.  My comments related to self defense, but Schultz, like other critics, needed to get the self defense aspect out of the way so that he could portray me as, in his words, as “reckless, stupid and racist” and to tell his audience that I had “advocated murder in the streets of Atlanta.”  You can’t say that I was advocating murder if it’s clear that I’m talking about defending yourself from a carjacker --- so that part was taken out.  Here, again, is what I said:

You need to know how to use that gun. You need to get a permit to carry that gun. And you do in fact need to carry that gun and we need to see some dead thugs littering the landscape in Atlanta. “We need to see the next guy that tries to carjack you shot dead right where he stands. We need more dead thugs in this city.”

… and here’s the way it sounded after Ed’s Edit:

You need to know how to use that gun. You need to get a permit to carry that gun. And you do in fact need to carry that gun and we need to see some dead thugs littering the landscape in Atlanta. We need more dead thugs in this city.”

Schultz had a guest from the NAACP on that show.  When that guest brought up the carjacking issue Ed cut him off.  That’s what you call “integrity,” right Ed?

    You can listen to the Shultz/MSNBC clip in this coverage by Huffington Post. 

So there you have it folks.  This left wing talk show host – Ed Schultz – wants to make some news by attacking me on the air.  He gets the complete and un-edited audio of what I said from the Media Matters website (Click here for the link) removes part of my comments that don’t quite fit his narrative, and presents the remainder to his MSNBC audience as an accurate portrayal of what I said on the air. 

Today my staff is going to provide MSNBC with the full tape of my comments and ask them to compare that tape to what Schultz played on his TV show.  We’ll see if an apology is forthcoming.  I rather doubt it – but the response should be interesting. 

And so it was with leftist websites and media outlets across the country.  Ed Shultz actually got quite a bit coverage with this little diatribe against me.  I guess that was the purpose, so it's a job well done for our man Ed.  An interesting twist to this story is that on many of the websites that took me to task for these remarks the comments from the readers were largely supportive of my position.  I put some of those comments in the box below.

But let's get to what I actually said on the air, and the reference to urban thugs.  I am not now, nor have I ever been constrained by the dictates of political correctness when it comes to speaking my feelings on the air.  And here's another secret.  The word "racist" doesn't bother me in the least.  That word has been so overused by liberals, race pimps, and so-called civil rights activists that it is virtually lost all meaning and any conversational impact it may have once had.  The fact is that fully 99% of the people who use that word have absolutely no idea what the word actually means.  If you ask them to write you short definitions for the words racist, bigot, and prejudiced, they would be completely unable to do so.

But rather than retreat from the remarks I made last week I'm going to take this opportunity to actually amplify them.

Here’s a nasty little secret for you.  Pretty much every time the Atlanta media reports a violent crime in the city; whether it's a rape, an assault, a shooting, a carjacking or the murder of three people who worked in a car wash that doubles as a rap music recording studio, (no kidding this happened last week), one of the first thoughts that will cross most people's minds is that the perpetrators were young black males.  I’m sure this is the case in most other large urban areas.  Sometimes these initial impressions will be false, but not that often.  Are these thoughts racist?  Do these first impressions occur because of some deeply held belief that young black males are genetically predisposed to commit crimes?  Hardly.  These initial impressions are brought about by recognition of the fact that young black males are engaged in criminal activity in numbers way out of proportion to their percentage of the population – a recognition that there is a culture of crime and violence in the urban community.  Yes, I can give you some statistics.  You might not like them, but they're there for you to develop on your own, if you care to, using FBI crime data.  Contact your local U.S. Government printing office, buy the reports and start crunching the numbers.  Or, if you wish, you can just read some of the data developed by people who have already done that work for you! 

• Blacks are seven times more likely than people of other races to commit murder, and eight times more likely to operate.
• When blacks commit crimes of violence, they are nearly 3 times more likely than non-blacks to use a gun, and more than twice as likely to use a knife.  Bear in mind that my comments last week were born of reports of two carjackings by young black males in the Atlanta area in which guns were used.
• If you start to delve even deeper into the statistics you will see that when you deal with the issue of interracial crime between blacks and whites you will find that blacks are the perpetrators 85% of the time while whites are responsible 15% of the time.
• The single best indicator of violent crime in an area is the percentage of the population that is black and Hispanic.

Racist statistics?  Come on … give me a break. You have to be a complete lunatic to believe that young black males are far more likely to be engaged in criminal activity because of the color of their skin.  This is a cultural problem, not a racial one. The pathetic truth is that this violence is part of urban black culture.  This is a culture where women are disparaged, gangsters are idolized, and, believe it or not, mothers of young black males have been reported to have been involved in actually helping their son's decide which gang to join.

There is one guaranteed outcome from the words that I'm speaking right now, and that is that some will scream that I’m a racist.  This constant use of the “R” word is actually a defense mechanism.  As long as you can shut down any conversation about crime rates in black communities with shouts of racism, you are protected from actually having to do anything about the problem itself;  that problem being the culture of violence.

On Saturday evening the NBC television affiliate in Atlanta, WXIA-TV, ran a story about my comments.  Interestingly enough, they didn't contact me or my staff to see if we had anything we wish to add or corrections we'd like to make.  They did, however, talk to one Edward DuBose, the chairman of the Georgia NAACP.  Mr. DuBose referred to my remarks as shocking and inflammatory and said that I was perhaps advocating violence and taking the law into your own hands.  Well I have some news for you Mr. DuBose.  The law IS in our hands.  The people of this nation are empowered to form local governments and through their representatives they can hire law enforcement officers to maintain order.  There is nothing in hiring a law enforcement officer that precludes an individual from engaging in acts of self-defense.  Protecting yourself from a violent criminal is not "taking the law into your own hands."  When we have lost our right to self defense we have lost our freedoms and our country.

But I have a question for you Mr. DuBose.  How many times have you spoken out against the culture of violence in the community you represent?  Could you perhaps provide me with the transcript of a speech or a statement you made decrying the refusal of many in the black community to cooperate with the police in investigating violent crimes?  While you're at it, maybe you would like to share with me and my listeners some of the statements that you would've made condemning or criticizing the violence, especially the violence against women that permeates rap "music."  And if you happen to come across a copy of your condemnation of that "if you see a cop Warnabrother” T-shirt that copies the Warner Brothers logo maybe you would like to share that with us also.  Do you know which community suffers the most from urban crime, Mr. DuBose?  Of course you do.  It's your community, the Black community.  Does it occur to you that if you and others like you would stop screaming racism every time somebody tries to address this culture of violence, things might improve?  What is your mission?  To advance advance “Colored People” as your name implies, or to make excuses for the level of violence and crime that those you claim to be helping bring to our community?  Then again, perhaps you wouldn't hold your job very long if you stopped screaming racism and started talking to people in your own community about changes in their attitudes and behavior – changes in their culture -- that need to be addressed.  Is that it Mr. DuBose?  Is your real job to nurture and promote the black community’s victim status?

I can fully understand why some people would be eager to reject the idea that culture has anything to do with the problem of crime in the black community.  After all, it is so much easier to blame it on oppression and racism.  If you are a victim of racism, then it’s somebody else's fault and it is up to them to change their attitudes.  But if you're a victim of your own culture then it's up to you to participate in addressing the problem and seeking the solutions.