Blog

Remember That ‘Zip Tie’ Guy Capitol Riot Story? Turns out That’s Not Quite True Either

The media has now backed off a claim that they’ve made now for more than a month: that Officer Brian Sicknick was killed after being hit by a fire extinguisher during the Capitol riot.

Now, we reported back on Jan. 10, a few days after, that there wasn’t evidence to support the claim at that time, that he collapsed several hours later after he had gone back to his office and texted his brother that he was fine after the riot. Authorities said he had no blunt trauma injury so the story about the fire extinguisher doesn’t stand up and they have yet to find any incident in the evidence that they’ve combed that they believe could be a precipitating incident. His family says he died from a stroke at the hospital.

Now there’s another story that may just have been debunked. You may recall the infamous picture of a man climbing over seats in the Capitol gallery of the Senate chamber holding what appeared to be zip ties or flex cuffs. That beamed around the world with people suggesting this was proof of an intent to kidnap lawmakers.

Well, not so much.

Now, this is one of those times where the picture or the video appears clear but actually isn’t.

But in this particular case, the story of the zip ties was distorted out of all reality because the guy didn’t actually bring them to the Capitol. According to prosecutors, the man found them on a desk that he happened to encounter once he got inside the Capitol. He took them apparently to ensure the Capitol Police couldn’t use them on the protesters, according to the prosecutors.

So no, he wasn’t bringing them in to kidnap lawmakers. But the picture has been pointed to and used innumerable times to suggest a kidnapping plot.

Keep reading

How ‘too white’ has become the meaningless default criticism of the morally superior elite determined to racialize EVERYTHING

Everything from US states to the classics to British TV is now routinely criticised for being ‘too white’. How has this happened when describing something as ‘too black’ would be considered unacceptable?

Have you heard of the expression ‘too white’? In the jargon of the Western elites, ‘too white’ serves as a synonym for words like ‘unpleasant’, ‘problematic’ or ‘toxic’.

Just listen to Tom Perez, the former chair of the Democratic National Committee in the US. He claims that New Hampshire is ‘too white’ to have the first primary for the election of a president. He also thinks that Iowa is ‘too white’ to have the first caucus during the election campaign.

According to the New Republic, the American Department of Justice is ‘too white’. A survey of minority businesses in the US concludes that local chambers of commerce are ‘too white’. Apparently American TV is also ‘too white’. Television in the UK does not get a free pass; Sir Lenny Henry insists that it is ‘too white’. A former head of comedy at the BBC agrees with this assessment and suggests it would not commission Monty Python today, because it is ‘too white’.

It appears that the UK’s green sector is also ‘too white’. Former head of Friends of the Earth, Craig Bennett, insisted that it must leave behind its “white middle class ghetto.” Even poor old Extinction Rebellion is indicted for being “too white, too middle class and lacking in empathy.”

The sense of outrage conveyed by the term ‘too white’ can attach itself to the most unexpected of targets. I am obviously unaware – because I did not know, but now I do – that even ‘dyslexia heroes are too white’.

Numerous sources insist that classical music is ‘too white’. Time and again I hear the claim that philosophy is ‘too white’. Some would even want to cancel the most important philosophers that ever lived, like Plato and Kant, because they are ‘too white’. In fact, virtually every university discipline – from classical music to mathematics through to history – has been condemned for being ‘too white’.

Keep reading

Now even classical music is racist

In a world where, sooner or later, everything is racialised, it was only a matter of time before classical music became a target of the crusade against whiteness. So I wasn’t particularly shocked when I read this headline in the New York Times: ‘Obscure Musicology Journal Sparks Battles over Race and Free Speech.’

The obscure musicology journal in question is the tiny Journal of Schenkerian Studies. The journal’s editor, Timothy Jackson, a music-theory professor at the University of North Texas, is under fire for his hard-hitting response to the claim that the interwar Austrian-Jewish composer and theorist Heinrich Schenker personified the white racist attitudes that dominate classical music. Jackson’s university has launched an investigation into his behaviour, barred him from editing the journal, and suspended funding for the Schenker Center, which he runs.

Jackson has been vilified by the Twittermob and ostracised by his colleagues. Graduates who have previously worked with him are now worried that their association with this fallen professor could harm their career prospects. How did this all happen?

Keep reading

Legacy media protects Democrats by omission

We were told, if Joe Biden was elected president everything would get “back to normal.” But the media is doing exactly the same thing to the American people, but now it’s through the looking glass.

Instead of promoting hoaxes, single-sourced stories that end up being false, approaching White House press briefings as combat, while seeding the daily news with tales of how awful and miserable everything is, in protecting the Biden administration, the media is now doing the opposite. The goal is the same, however: manipulating and conning the American people with misinformation. 

Now we are subjected to the media lying by omission. They shush when the Biden administration tells them to shush. They approach White House press briefings as though they’re seeing high school chums for the first time in 10 years. The most noticeable things missing are the fake stories meant to harm the ability of the president to govern.

Keep reading

Biden won’t rule out cracking down on Second Amendment rights with executive orders

President Joe Biden reportedly won’t rule out using executive orders to crackdown on Americans’ constitutionally protected Second Amendment rights.

The revelation was made during a White House press conference on Tuesday in response to a statement that Biden put out last week calling for banning semi-automatic firearms in addition to other gun control measures, Daily Wire reported.

“What is your timetable for action on what the president calls common sense measures?” a reporter asked White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki. “And what’s the realistic hope that you have this will pass both houses?”

“Well, we haven’t proposed a package at this point,” Psaki responded. “So it’s hard for me to make a prediction about its likelihood of passing. But I will say that the president is somebody throughout his career who has advocated for smart gun safety measures. He is not afraid of standing up to the NRA. He’s done it multiple times and won on background checks and a range of issues. And it is a priority to him on a personal level, but I don’t have a prediction for you, or preview for you on a timeline of a package, and certainly not what it will look like and how it goes through Congress.”

Keep reading

It Sure Seems Like Joe Biden Is Incapable of Doing His Job

Joe Biden hasn’t been president for a month and it already seems like a year. His flurry of executive orders, most of which he probably couldn’t even tell you what they do, have killed jobs, caused a surge in illegal immigration, and have turned out federal government into a bastion of wokeness. Yet, despite the great harm he’s already brought about, his schedule has remained relatively light. He almost never takes questions, and certainly not in the impromptu fashion Trump and other past presidents have. You rarely see him outside of staged photo-ops, and he’s always closely monitored and scripted.

Over the weekend, he was filmed via camera phone at Camp David playing Mario Kart during a period in which 79,000 people have died of COVID on his watch. That’s about as in the public eye as he’s been lately, and I’m not sure that’s by accident.

Today, news broke that Kamala Harris is taking phone calls with world leaders in Biden’s absence.

I’m not sure if such is unheard of, but it’s extremely unusual for a vice president to be taking those types of phone calls in the first few months of a new administration. This is the time the president is typically making first contact and, you know, doing his job as the leader of the free world. Instead, reports are that he’s going to bed early as if there’s nothing important going on in the world. The White House is starting to resemble a nursing home.

Meanwhile, Biden has also not called any governors involved in the massive winter storm that has crippled Texas and the South.

Keep reading