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The past week has seen such a flurry of media activity, that it’s difficult to pinpoint the key story: the GOP just passed the biggest tax cuts in the 30 years. Former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn was charged with lying to the FBI. And the mainstream media treated the American public to a hysteria-fest related to Trump’s alleged use of “racial slurs” at a White House ceremony, and endorsement of alleged “anti-Muslim tweets” in support of an obscure British “hate group.”
In today’s America there is little critical analysis of the popular storylines that the mainstream media attempts to ram down our throats on a daily basis. Thus: “racial slur”, “anti-Muslim”, “hate speech”, and “far-right hate group” are terms that are batted about with reckless abandon, and rarely called into question by anyone.
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It was truly surprising that, even in the conservative media, no one came to Trump’s defense. At National Review, Jonathan Tobin attacked Trump’s “shocking retweets of anti-Muslim videos posted by a British extremist leader,” while offering up no critical insight or analysis of the nature of the tweets themselves.
Let’s first examine Trump’s supposed “racial slur.”
At a White House ceremony honoring Navajo World War 2 code breakers, Trump referred to Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren as “Pocahontas” in a move quickly deemed by the mainstream media to be a racial slur. As usual, the story here focused entirely on Trump, with little to no investigation of the back story.
Elizabeth Warren claimed to be a Native American on job applications for law schools, and was listed and promoted as a Native American in the Harvard University faculty directory. To date, there is not a shred of evidence that she has Native American ancestry. When queried by the media, she pathetically claimed that her grandmother whipped up some Cherokee recipes, and noted that her grandfather had high cheekbones.
That would be like Donald Trump saying…”You know my grandma made some amazing Jamaican jerk chicken and curry goat when I was growing up, so I am going to write that I am black on my job applications.”
In 2012 the New England Historic Genealogical Society found “no proof of Warren having Native American lineage.” Trevor Noah, of the Daily Show, noted that Elizabeth’s claims were problematic, adding that Trump’s comments were “difficult to process.” Well, it may be difficult to process because you have a politician (Donald Trump) who admittedly is wont to play fast and loose with the truth, but who here is raising a completely legitimate issue.
It is reasonable enough to suggest that this was hardly the appropriate venue for Trump to reignite his longstanding feud with Elizabeth Warren; but setting aside the circumstances, Trump was absolutely in the right to call her out on this. She lied. She is not Native American. Her contributions to the cookbook Pow Wow Chow, were pathetic. Boston radio host Howie Carr has coined the most appropriate term here: “Fauxcahontas”…which I think best encapsulates the ludicrousness of Warren’s unfounded claims.
Trump’s use of the term “Pocahontas” hardly constitutes “hate speech”, nor was it intended to denigrate Native Americans. It was attempting to point out that Elizabeth Warren is being fundamentally dishonest here.
Under normal circumstances Warren would have resigned from the Senate in disgrace. But this is Massachusetts, so despite low approval numbers, due to lackluster Republican challengers, she will be cruising to reelection in 2018, while prepping for a potential presidential campaign in 2020 to promote her special brand of “democratic socialism.”
Which brings us to the second component of Trump‘s politically incorrect week: his alleged anti-Muslim retweets.
There are three videos in question. They have been repeatedly referred to as “fake” and “anti-Muslim” in the mainstream media. Are they fake and anti-Muslim?
Why has this trilogy of videos proved so controversial? It may have more to do with who Trump retweeted than with the videos themselves. The videos were created and posted by Jayda Fransen, a member of Britain First, which is routinely categorized as ultranationalist and far-right. But is it a hate group?
The group claims to espouse “British and Christian morality” a commitment to “preserving our ancestral ethnic and cultural heritage” and “supports the maintenance of the indigenous British people as the demographic majority within our own homeland.” They assert that “Britain First is not against individual Muslims, but specifically against the doctrine and religion of Islam itself as an ideology.”
If Trump retweets videos posted by Britain First, that does not necessarily mean that he agrees with everything they believe. More likely, Trump knew little to nothing about Britain First, but saw their disturbing videos and wanted to share them.
The first purports to show a Muslim beating up a Dutch boy on crutches. The second shows a supporter of terrorist group al-Nusra Front destroying a statue of the Virgin Mary in Syria. The third shows an Islamist mob of Mohammed Morsi supporters throwing a teenage boy to his death in Egypt.
Despite what the media has claimed, not one of the three videos has been proven to be fake; all three film events that actually happened. What is in dispute is the identity of the attacker in the first video: specifically is he Muslim and/or a migrant?
Here is where the real lack of investigative journalism on the part of the mainstream media becomes apparent. This was a major national and international news story. But how can it be that we do not even yet have the names of the victim and the attacker in this case? Why don’t we have a police report for the incident? Why has no one picked up the phone and called the police precinct where the attack occurred?
The New York Times has reported that the incident took place in Monnickendam, in the province of North Holland, and has stated that while the boy behind the attack is not a migrant, the local prosecutor, Marleen van Fessem, “would not elaborate on the religion of either of the teenagers,” citing department policy. This hardly disproves that the attacker is Muslim, leaving the question up in the air.
If it is true that the attacker in the video is neither an immigrant nor a Muslim, then the video obviously should be discredited for attempting to showcase Muslim violence; but this has no impact on the veracity of the second and third videos. The mainstream media has used deceptive headlines to falsely claim that all three videos are fake.
What is anti-Muslim about showing a terrorist destroying a religious icon of another religion? What is anti-Muslim about showing Islamist supporters of Muslim-Brotherhood-backed former president Mohammed Morsi throwing a boy to his death because they disagree with his politics and religion?
Here is the quote from the father of the 19 year old boy murdered by the Muslim Brotherhood and Al-Qaeda supporters in Egypt, after the military deposed the Islamist government of Mohammed Morsi:
“Do you know the teen that they killed and disfigured his body and threw from the fifth floor is only 19 and four days. All he was guilty of was that he was on the roof of the building, celebrating the ouster of Morsi. But the Brotherhood waged a war against whoever was celebrating Morsi’s departure.”
So…what was completely missed by the mainstream media. Islamist supporters of Morsi saw a boy celebrating on a roof, and killed him because they disagreed with him. Sharing this video is hardly an anti-Muslim hate crime.
Trump should be praised for sharing this video. It shows all of us the fate that awaits us if we allow Islamist governments to take power: a world where we can throw a 19 year old boy to his death because we don’t agree with his politics.
This is hardly fake news…this really happened.
Just last week, Morsi supporters affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood perpetrated a shocking attack, killing 315 people in the Sinai Peninsula.
What is truly disturbing here is that the mainstream media is putting words in Trump’s mouth: Trump did not suggest that all Muslims are responsible for the content of these videos. He did not suggest that all Muslims are terrorists or violent. It is hardly “hate speech” or “bigotry” or “Islamophobia” to share controversial videos merely because they involve Muslims.
This is just the kind of insanity that we have come to expect from the political, academic, and media elites.
What are we to expect next?
This is like saying that showing footage of Japanese war crimes is anti-Asian, or showing video footage of 9/11 is anti-Muslim, or showing videos of the Shining Path is anti-Latino.
It does not add up. It doesn’t make sense. Trump has every right to share videos that highlight the danger of Islamism and jihadism. But it gets worse. The mainstream media is taking on our freedom of speech.
CNN, among others, is now calling for an assault on free speech: banning Trump’s tweets on the subject on the social media platform.
This is to be expected more and more in the future. Free speech and First Amendment protections are disappearing before our eyes. Conservative and libertarian groups will be targeted, while left-wing groups will be free to spread their propaganda through the mainstream and social media.
“Hate speech” will now be used to silence opponents of the Deep State, and fire people from their jobs, expel students from their universities and colleges, and bully, harass, and intimidate anyone who dares offend polite society and the global economic and political elites upon which they feed.
Say what you will about Trump, but even if you despise the man, it is abundantly clear that the mainstream media is using every possible tactic, however tainted,to discredit him: distorting the truth, launching ad hominem attacks, and spreading its false propaganda.
