Kristen Welker asked the candidates about The Talk. That moment proved the value of newsroom diversity.

Any debate moderator could have asked the candidates the question about The Talk — the terrible conversation that parents must have with their children of color to warn them about the hazards their skin color may present for them as they go out in the world.

It’s a talk that advises them how to stay safe, for example, when pulled over by police: Keep your hands visible, be extremely polite and don’t make any sudden movements.

It’s a talk that most White parents don’t feel the need to have with their kids.

Anyone could have asked it, but Kristen Welker was the one who did. And because the NBC News correspondent is Black, the question carried an extra measure of seriousness and authenticity.

It not only prompted some of the most enlightening answers of Thursday night’s final presidential debate. It also perfectly illustrated why American journalists in newsrooms across the country have been so righteously indignant in recent months about matters of race in their own organizations.

Diversity actually does make a difference. It actually does make for better journalism.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/media/kristen-welker-asked-the-candidates-about-the-talk-that-moment-proved-the-value-of-newsroom-diversity/2020/10/23/d166944e-1533-11eb-ad6f-36c93e6e94fb_story.html

President Trump’s Deputy Communications Director Julia Hahn had connections to the white nationalist movement around the time she joined the White House as an aide, based upon hundreds of private correspondences that were leaked to Hatewatch by a former colleague and friend.

The leaked emails show Hahn is connected to Peter Brimelow, whom she refers to at one point casually by his first name. Brimelow founded the white nationalist hate group VDARE. VDARE traffics in the “white genocide” conspiracy theory, which suggests that white people are being systemically replaced in Western nations by non-white people. VDARE has published commentary by one of the principal organizers of the deadly white supremacist “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, and publicly defended that event on its third anniversary this August. Brimelow’s group has also published apologia regarding the ideologies espoused by far-right mass murderers in El Paso, Texas, and Christchurch, New Zealand.



Additionally, the emails suggest that before Hahn joined the right-wing website Breitbart News as an editor, she attended a writer’s workshop with the white nationalist publishing house The Social Contract Press. Her story pitches to Breitbart News show influence of the type of white nationalist worldview espoused by VDARE and The Social Contract Press. For example, in one July 2016 pitch, Hahn wrote, “How many whites have been killed by blacks since Obama has been in office?” – apparently seeking to draw a parallel between the election of America’s first Black president and Black people murdering whites.

Hahn also hyped the doomed congressional candidacy of Wisconsin’s Paul Nehlen in her writing for Breitbart News across at least 36 posts. Nehlen eventually used the fans he gained from his Breitbart News attention and from his failed stab at politics to become a notorious cheerleader for white supremacist terrorism, calling mass murderers such as Anders Breivik, Dylann Roof and Brenton Tarrant “saints.” Although Nehlen’s rhetoric grew increasingly hateful after losing two primary races against former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, he was already a far-right extremist at the time Hahn repeatedly promoted his candidacy. Hahn promoted Nehlen at least four times in Breitbart News after he expressed an openness to the idea of physically removing every Muslim citizen from America.

Former Breitbart News editor Katie McHugh leaked over 600 of Hahn’s private emails to Hatewatch. McHugh delivered to Hatewatch emails taken from Hahn’s personal Gmail and her Breitbart News work email. She also leaked scores of text messages and Google Chat transcripts. McHugh, who once immersed herself in the anti-immigrant movement and rubbed shoulders with open white nationalists, has since renounced far-right extremism and racism. McHugh leaked to Hatewatch over 900 previously private emails authored by White House adviser Stephen Miller in 2019.

https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2020/10/21/trump-official-brought-hate-connections-white-house

(FOX 2) - Michigan native Kid Rock was a member of the sparse audience Thursday at the final presidential debate between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden.

The musician was seen sitting in the seats at Belmont University in Nashville with golfer John Daly, who also tweeted a photo.

Kid Rock has been a vocal supporter of the president for years, even making appearances in the White House during Trump's first few years as president.

The musician last month even headlined a Make America Great Again! campaign event in his homestate of Michigan, in Macomb County, in fact - a county that notoriously flipped last presidential election and helped catapult Trump's win to the White House. Donald Trump Jr. also attended that rally.

...

Kid Rock and Daly were seen photographed sitting in their seats sans face masks before the debate began. They were reportedly approached by an employee and handed fresh masks to wear.





https://www.fox2detroit.com/news/kid-rock-spotted-in-audience-at-final-presidential-debate-in-nashville

Police are investigating a Warren city councilman who handcuffed a woman for posting Black Lives Matter stickers on a President Donald Trump yard sign in Eastpointe.

Councilman Eddie Kabacinski was attending a Trump rally on Oct. 14 when he told police he spotted a 24-year-old woman putting three stickers on a Trump sign along the street, according to a police report obtained by Metro Times.

Kabacinski chased her down, grabbed her, and handcuffed her while waiting for police to respond, the report states. At some point, Kabacinksi said the woman sprayed him with silly string.

"Putting a decal sticker over a Trump sign, and it says Black Lives Matter, you are promoting a domestic terrorist organization on a Trump sign and that’s not good," he told C&G Newspapers. "That’s not the image that the Trump campaign or the Republican Party is trying to convey. We are trying to get back to law and order in this country.”

https://www.metrotimes.com/news-hits/archives/2020/10/23/warren-city-councilman-handcuffed-woman-for-posting-black-lives-matter-sticker-on-trump-sign-police-say

THREAD: Morning everyone. Taking a break from voting posts to, apropos of nothing, post some photos of various places in Michigan - which, most assuredly, is not a prison. #PureMichigan (1/4)

https://twitter.com/JocelynBenson/status/1319634950136758280