RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://unherd.com/2022/09/the-american-medias-racism-fantasy/

It was the kind of correction you love to see. The story that originally broke in the final days of August, about a young black athlete being racially heckled in front of a crowd of thousands at Utah’s Brigham Young University, was not just exaggerated but completely false. The n-word was not shouted, let alone repeatedly, at Duke volleyball player Rachel Richardson when she went up to serve. A crowd of more than 5,000 people did not stand idly by during an act of malignant racism. The United States is not, apparently, a socially backwards hellscape where people openly scream slurs at packed sporting events without compunction or shame.

Unfortunately, it’s a correction that many people are probably never going to see — or if they do, they won’t believe it.

Like many stories of its oeuvre, this one began on Twitter, when Richardson’s godmother Lesa Pamplin claimed in a series of since-deleted posts that the young volleyball player had been subject to racist abuse throughout the game: “My Goddaughter is the only black starter for Dukes [sic] volleyball team,” she wrote. “While playing yesterday, she was called a [n-word] every time she served. She was threatened by a white male that told her to watch her back going to the team bus. A police officer had to be put by their bench.”

Pamplin hadn’t been at the game herself, but the claim was incendiary. The story was soon picked up by mainstream outlets, which treated the alleged harassment — and discovery of its perpetrator — as verified fact. From USA Today: “Brigham Young fan banned after directing racial slurs toward Duke volleyball player.” The Washington Post: “BYU bans fan, relocates volleyball match after racist slurs, threats.” The New York Times: “Racial Slur During College Volleyball Game Leads to Fan Suspension.”

https://townhall.com/columnists/marknuckols/2022/09/15/liberal-double-standards-and-fascism-n2613141

Mehdi Hasan is one of MSNBC’s most popular hosts. For American liberals, he’s a dream come true. Muslim, check. Raised in the United Kingdom, he went to an exclusive prep school in London, founded in 1561, check. He speaks like an English aristocrat, check. He despises America, check. And he has publicly referred to Christians and other non-Muslims as “animals” and “people of no intelligence.” Double check. And he’s always angry.

He did a show this week about how “Fascism is on the Rise in Europe, Not Just in the U.S.” You see, for MSNBC viewers, Europe is the Land of Enlightenment and Progress, except for those vicious right-wing governments in Poland and Hungary. But Hasan had a Yale professor and an Italian Muslim to warn us, you can’t escape fascism in America by moving to Europe, fascism is on the march everywhere these days.

“Fascists” have done well in this week’s elections in Sweden and will be part of a new coalition government. And “Fascists” are poised to do well in upcoming Italian elections. And you only see “fascism” in white-majority countries, like the U.S. or in Europe.

And what is fascism? According to Hasan and his guests, you can see several key elements in the “fascist” Swedish Democrats party and its members. They are against unlimited immigration. Check, fascism. They support traditional family values. They support gay rights, but some members find Gay Pride parades a bit boring, annoying even. Fascism, double check. They respect religious rights, but believe that Muslim immigrants should obey the laws of Sweden and should learn Swedish language, in return for generous social benefits. Fascism, triple check.

And yet, somehow Hasan seems incapable of recognizing simple facts. Now, his audience doesn’t know anything about Islam, the Middle East, Africa, or Europe. But Hasan does, so his ignorance is really just willful blindness.

There are no countries in Africa or the Middle East that welcome immigrants. In South Africa, the only country in Africa wealthy enough to attract immigrants, immigrants from neighboring countries like Zimbabwe are beaten and sometimes murdered. They are certainly not offered social benefit packages and citizenship. In Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait and Oman, there are millions of immigrants, mostly from India and the Philippines. They have only “guest worker” status, they can never be accorded citizenship, and they have basically no rights in the courts.

https://amgreatness.com/2022/09/15/the-unidentified-and-uncharged-instigator-in-oath-keepers-case/

The long-awaited trial of the most high-profile January 6 case will begin later this month. Five members of the Oath Keepers, an alleged “militia” group involved in the Capitol protest, face charges of seditious conspiracy and other serious felonies. It is the first trial in a multi-defendant prosecution that has dominated the attention of the Department of Justice, the January 6 select committee, and the national news media.

Stewart Rhodes, the founder of the group, along with Thomas Caldwell, Kelly Meggs, Kenneth Harrelson, and Jessica Watkins will face a highly biased D.C. jury pool—the government so far has an undefeated record in January 6 trials composed of Washington, D.C. residents—as they attempt to avoid life in prison for the seditious conspiracy count. (Meggs, Harrelson, and Watkins have been detained in the D.C. gulag denied bail since spring 2021.)

At least a dozen other members of the Oath Keepers currently await trial for their nonviolent participation in the events of January 6. But one person won’t face trial. In fact, it appears this chief instigator isn’t even charged despite a trove of evidence showing how he incited at least one member of the group to engage in criminal behavior that day.

Someone identified only as “1%Watchdog” started a group chat on an encrypted application called Zello, which mimics a walkie-talkie. The channel, named “Stop the Steal J6,” was created on January 1, 2021; by noon on January 6, 2021, the channel had about 170 subscribers including Watkins, prosecutors allege.