Scott Walker and Ted Cruz, step up attack campaign – and the target is Black Lies Matter

Donald Trump has jumped out in front of the 2016 Republican primary race largely on the strength of his anti-immigrant rhetoric.
Now, in the quest for an edge in a tightly packed field, some Republican candidates may be drawing nearer to exploiting an even older fault line in American society.
With increasing frequency over the last week, Republican candidates have sallied attacks on Black Lives Matter, the movement born of protests against police killings of African Americans. The Republican candidates have been testing new messages with various subtle edges – and abilities to cut.
Republicans have stopped short, so far, of tying Black Lives Matter by name to the killing of multiple law enforcement officers across the country last month. But at least two Republicans, Scott Walker and Ted Cruz, have cited the group as evidence of a new anti-police “culture” – created by President Barack Obama, they say – that has endangered the lives of law enforcement officers.

Other Republican candidates have faulted Black Lives Matter as selfish in its focus on African Americans, as inflammatory in its rhetoric or as failing to focus on black-on-black violence. Drowning them out and goading them on have been Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and other conservative barkers, who have not hesitated to draw an explicit link between the movement and the killing of police officers, despite a lack of any supporting evidence.

“That kind of incident is seized upon by Black Lives Matter and other radical groups to demonize the police,” Fox News host Bill O’Reilly said this week, of a fatal shooting by police of a Latino man. “Every time there is a controversy about an officer shooting a black person, they’re out there stirring the pot.”

O’Reilly’s guest pointed out that fatal attacks on law enforcement are down 17% so far in 2015 when compared with last year. But the facts have not stopped Fox News from branding Black Lives Matter a “murder movement” and a “hate group” – the latter label having first been applied by Limbaugh.
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/sep/04/republicans-black-lives-matter-scapegoating-movement?CMP=ema_565