Archive for the ‘George Zimmerman’ Category

Pro-Sheriff David Clarke group says Clarke called Black Lives … – PolitiFact

Nate Hamilton, the brother of Dontre Hamilton, who was killed by a Milwaukee police officer, talks with Milwaukee police during a Black Lives Matter rally in July 2016. (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel/Mike De Sisti)

A committee aiming to persuade the "peoples sheriff" to run for the U.S. Senate is raising money by highlighting the African-Americans inflammatory statements about Black Lives Matter.

Its no secret that Milwaukee County Sheriff David A. Clarke Jr., a Donald Trump supporter and nationally known conservative, has harshly criticized the group.

Yet, we wondered if he has gone as far as the Sheriff David Clarke for U.S. Senate draft committee says he has.

As reported by the liberal magazine Mother Jones, the committee sent a fundraising email on April 5, 2017 that suggested several reasons why Clarke would make a good senator -- starting with this one:

"Milwaukees conservative black Sheriff CORRECTLY says BLACK LIVES MATTER is a terrorist movement, a hate group, and calls it Black LIES Matter."

The committee also makes the statement on its website.

Lets look at each of the three parts.

The committee

Sheriff David Clarke for U.S. Senate is not a committee authorized by Clarke, but is registered with the Federal Election Commission as an official draft campaign.

It has attacked first-term U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, a Democrat, for being a lesbian as part of its effort to get Clarke to run against her in 2018. Clarke has not ruled out a run, but hasnt expressed strong interest, either, while a number of Republicans have.

For her part, Baldwin has said Clarke is "being groomed" to challenge her, and has raised campaign funds herself off his possible candidacy.

While a favorite of the right, Clarke has drawn criticism for his racial remarks as well as for his performance as sheriff as he increasingly spends time on national television and traveling the country on speaking engagements. He has also said virtually nothing about four inmate deaths in the jail he manages that are under investigation.

Now to the statement about what Clarke said.

Hate group

Black Lives Matter formed after a Florida jury in 2013 found George Zimmerman not guilty of murder in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed African-American teen. Describing its aim as rebuilding "the black liberation movement," the group has participated around the country in demonstrations, including some around Milwaukee, about police killings of black people.

Clarke called Black Lives Matter a "hate group" in a July 2016 opinion column he wrote for FoxNews.com and has made any number of similar references such as these:

"I wish the Southern Poverty Law Center would add them (Black Lives Matter) to the list of hate groups in America this hateful ideology of Black Lives Matter." -- Fox News "Americas News HQ," July 31, 2016

"Black Lives Matter are purveyors of hate. It is a hateful, violent ideology." -- Fox News "Hannity" show, July 17, 2016

Black Lies Matter

Clarke has used "Lies" instead of "Lives" in referencing the group many times, including in his memoir, released in February 2017, and on CNN and Fox in 2015.

In the Fox interview, he elaborated on why, saying:

"The whole thing is built on a lie, the whole premise is built on a lie. But its a conglomeration of misfits. You have Occupy movement, you have organized labor in on it now, you have criminals, you have black racialists, you have cop haters and anarchists have now formed together this faux movement, if you will."

Terrorist movement

Clarke hasnt used a terrorism reference nearly as often, but he does so twice in his book:

"In the five days surrounding the Dallas shooting -- which was the worst police massacre since 9/11, by the way -- there was even more Black LIES Matter-inspired violence (four attacks on police are listed).Let me guess. Youd never heard of these incidents. Thats because the media protect and lie about this insidious terror organization."

Clarke also predicted on Twitter in 2015 that Black Lives Matter "will join forces with ISIS to being (sic) down our legal constituted republic."

And in a July 2016 column he wrote for The Hill, he said: "We have several forces internal and external attacking our rule of law: ISIS, Black Lives Matter, Occupy Wall Street just the most recent iterations of the elements who brand themselves as unique but seek the same revolutionary aim: take down the West "

Our rating

The Sheriff David Clarke for U.S. Senate draft committee says that Clarke said Black Lives Matter "is a terrorist movement, a hate group and calls it, Black LIES Matter."

Clarke has repeatedly used Lies instead of Lives in labeling the group, and has repeatedly called it a hate group. In his memoir, he calls the group a "terrorist organization."

We rate the statement True.

Share the Facts

2017-04-17 20:39:31 UTC

1

1

7

True

Says Milwaukee County Sheriff David A. Clarke Jr. has said Black Lives Matter "is a terrorist movement, a hate group and calls it, Black LIES Matter."

Sheriff David Clarke for U.S. Senate

Draft committee

In a fund-raising email

Wednesday, April 5, 2017

2017-04-05

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Pro-Sheriff David Clarke group says Clarke called Black Lives ... - PolitiFact

George Zimmerman’s dad: My son fired only after Trayvon Martin th – Palm Beach Post

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Moments before George Zimmerman shot and killed Trayvon Martin, the black 17-year-old had him pinned to the ground, was beating him and had threatened to kill him, his father told an Orlando television station.

Robert Zimmerman, 64, of Lake Mary, told WOFL-Channel 35 that his son shot Trayvon only after the Miami Gardens teenager knocked him down with a single punch that broke his nose, then got on top of him and kept punching.

Trayvon also pounded Zimmerman's head onto a concrete sidewalk, Robert Zimmerman said, opening two gashes on the back of his head.

His account is very similar to what the Orlando Sentinel reported Monday in a story about the evidence Sanford police collected in the case.

"After nearly a minute of being beaten, George was trying to get off the concrete, trying to move with Trayvon on top of him into the grass. In doing so, his firearm was shown. Trayvon Martin said something to the effect of, 'You're going to die now,' or, 'You're going to die tonight,' At some point, George pulled his pistol and did what he did," Robert Zimmerman said.

A security camera video released to ABC News shows Sanford police walking a handcuffed George Zimmerman into their headquarters, but there are no visible injuries on his head or face.

He had been tended to at the scene by paramedics.

Trayvon was killed Feb. 26 in Zimmerman's mixed-race gated community in Sanford. Local police handcuffed Zimmerman and took him to police headquarters that night but opted not to arrest him. That has led to civil rights rallies across the country and launched a federal civil rights investigation.

Sanford police said they could not arrest Zimmerman because he claimed self-defense, that witnesses corroborated much of his account and that they found no probable cause to justify a charge of manslaughter.

Last week, Gov. Rick Scott appointed a special prosecutor, Angela Corey, state attorney in Duval, Clay and Nassau counties. The case is now in her hands. She has not spelled out what she will do but has indicated she may make a decision about whether to arrest Zimmerman without empaneling a grand jury.

Zimmerman's father said his son is not a racist and that he is stunned by the amount of hatred he's heard from critics, who accuse his son of racial profiling and pursuing and killing Trayvon.

Robert Zimmerman said he and his family have gone into hiding.

"It's just amazing. Some people are being so hateful, and the people who are being so hateful know nothing about what happened," Robert Zimmerman said.

The screams for help heard in the background of one 911 tape, he said, are his son. Critics have said they were the cries of Trayvon, begging for his life.

Robert Zimmerman, a retired magistrate from Virginia, told WOFL that based on the evidence that he knows about, a judge would not sign an arrest warrantfor his son.

"If a law enforcement officer presented these facts to me and requested a warrant, it would absolutely be denied," he said.

The rest is here:
George Zimmerman's dad: My son fired only after Trayvon Martin th - Palm Beach Post

Today in History – Albany Democrat Herald

Today is Saturday, April 22, the 112th day of 2017. There are 253 days left in the year.

Today's Highlight in History:

On April 22, 1864, Congress authorized the use of the phrase "In God We Trust" on U.S. coins.

In 1889, the Oklahoma Land Rush began at noon as thousands of homesteaders staked claims.

In 1930, the United States, Britain and Japan signed the London Naval Treaty, which regulated submarine warfare and limited shipbuilding.

In 1937, thousands of college students in New York City staged a "peace strike" opposing American entry into another possible world conflict.

In 1946, Harlan F. Stone, chief justice of the United States, died in Washington, D.C., at age 73.

In 1952, an atomic test in Nevada became the first nuclear explosion shown on live network television as a 31-kiloton bomb was dropped from a B-50 Superfortress.

In 1954, the publicly televised sessions of the Senate Army-McCarthy hearings began.

In 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson opened the New York World's Fair.

In 1970, millions of Americans concerned about the environment observed the first "Earth Day."

In 1987, Joe Hunt, leader of a social and investment group called the "Billionaire Boys Club," was convicted by a jury in Santa Monica, California, of murdering Ron Levin, a con man whose body was never found. (Hunt was sentenced to life in prison.)

In 1994, Richard M. Nixon, the 37th president of the United States, died at a New York hospital four days after suffering a stroke; he was 81.

In 1997, in Lima, Peru, government commandos stormed the Japanese ambassador's residence where Tupac Amaru rebels were holding 72 hostages, ending a 126-day crisis; two commandos, one hostage and all 14 rebels were killed in the dramatic rescue.

In 2000, in a dramatic predawn raid, armed immigration agents seized Elian Gonzalez, the Cuban boy at the center of a custody dispute, from his relatives' home in Miami; Elian was reunited with his father at Andrews Air Force Base near Washington.

Ten years ago: In the first round of the French presidential election, conservative Nicolas Sarkozy and Socialist rival Segolene Royal received enough votes to advance to a runoff, which Sarkozy won.

Five years ago: George Zimmerman was quietly released from a Florida jail on $150,000 bail to await his second-degree murder trial in the fatal shooting of unarmed teen Trayvon Martin. (Zimmerman was acquitted.)

One year ago: Leaders from 175 countries signed the Paris Agreement on climate change at the United Nations as the landmark deal took a key step toward entering into force years ahead of schedule.

Thought for Today: "That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons that history has to teach." Aldous Huxley, English author (1894-1963).

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Today in History - Albany Democrat Herald

‘You The Jury’ Show With Jose Baez Benjamin Crump — Fox News … – Radar Online

Sydney Shelton was horrified when her co-worker, Gerod Roth, posted a picture of her African-American son on Facebook with racist comments, and now RadarOnline.com has learned she is getting her day in court.

Judge Jeanine Pirros new legal show, You The Jury, is taking on the case in the second week.

You knew it was going to be a daunting task, attorney Benjamin Crump told Radar. (Crump represented Trayvon Martins family after he was killed by George Zimmerman.) If you dont stand up and speak for your children then no one else is going to do it.

PHOTOS: Tears & Tantrums! 9 Shocking Moments From Jenelles Jury Trial

When Roth posted little Caydens picture on Facebook in 2015 without his mothers permission or knowledge and called him feral, his group of friends chimed in with their own racist comments, including one writing, I didnt know you were a slave owner.

Crump is representing Shelton against infamous Casey Anthony attorney Baez. He told Radar that her emotions were real, fear for her child was real.

She sat face to face with the person who caused so much pain and it was very emotional. The emotions over took her. It was like real-life court.

You The Jury allows American viewers the opportunity to decide the verdict with a five-minute voting window and results aired live. Crump says that he plans to watch the show in his office with family, friends and co-workers and hopes for the best outcome.

PHOTOS: No Shame! Hot Car Dad Justin Ross Harris Laughs In Court As Jury Deliberates

I would tell you this: As a civil rights lawyer, it was interesting to me how authentic it was, going through the process, he said. It was very real.

As for why Shelton decided to take her case to reality TV, Crump said, If she doesnt stand up right now and try to tell her son its not ok to let people make you a victim of racism then no one will.

You The Jury airs at 9 p.m. EST on FOX.

We pay for juicy info! Do you have a story for RadarOnline.com? Email us at tips@radaronline.com, or call us at (866) ON-RADAR (667-2327) any time, day or night.

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'You The Jury' Show With Jose Baez Benjamin Crump -- Fox News ... - Radar Online

The Duke Lacrosse Scandal and the Birth of the Alt-Right – New York Magazine

Duke lacrosse player David Evans (center-R), 23 years old, proclaims his innocence after being indicted on sexual-assault charges on May 15, 2006, in Durham, North Carolina. Photo: Sara D. Davis/Getty Images

After work one day in January 2007, Scott McConnell left his office at the magazine The American Conservative in Arlington, Virginia, and walked to a nearby Thai restaurant that was hosting a panel discussion about the Duke lacrosse scandal. Nine months earlier, three members of the universitys mens lacrosse team had been accused of raping a black woman they had hired as a stripper. Much of the Duke community, including 88 professors who signed a statement calling the situation a social disaster, declared this was merely the latest and most egregious example of the racist, sexist, and privileged behavior that permeated the elite campus. Jesse Jackson showed up, as did news trucks from every major network, and most of the reporting coalesced around the same narrative: A group of wealthy, white men had taken advantage of a poor, black woman, just as white men had done for centuries.

McConnell and his magazine had largely ignored the scandal; identity politics werent top of mind for conservative media then, and most outlets werent especially interested in defending a group of rich jocks who had hired a stripper. But by January, the case was imploding. The accuser had changed her story more than half a dozen times, one of the players had a well-documented alibi, and DNA tests found no match with any member of the team, a fact the prosecutors initially hid from the defense. McConnell was reminded of The Bonfire of the Vanities, Tom Wolfes novel about 1980s New York in which an overzealous prosecutor, the media, and the citys liberal elite rushed to condemn an innocent white man accused of killing a black man. There was this palpable yearning among the liberal establishment for guilty white people they could put on trial, McConnell said, of the lacrosse case.

McConnell and one of his editors, Michael Dougherty, went to the Thai restaurant panel hoping to find someone to write about the case. They knew most of the speakers an economics professor, an editor at the Washington Times, a mens-rights blogger but their talks were so boilerplate that neither McConnell nor Dougherty could recall much about them. The fourth speaker, however, was a Ph.D. candidate in Dukes history department who delivered a blistering critique of the Duke facultys rush to prejudgment. Scott and I both thought, Heres a young guy, he presents himself well, and his talk was the most interesting of the night, Dougherty said recently. God, I hate to think that we were part of creating this.

Richard Spencer, the fourth speaker, is now Americas most famous self-identified white nationalist. In this funny chain of events, the Duke lacrosse case changed the course of my career, Spencer told me recently. My life would not have taken the direction it did absent the Duke lacrosse case. The speech at the Thai restaurant Ironic, isnt it? he said pushed him from an academic track toward a more activist one. McConnell commissioned Spencer to write a piece for The American Conservative about the case, and, by the end of the semester, Spencer had dropped out of school to work at the magazine full-time. A year later, he coined the term alt-right.

The lacrosse players were eventually acquitted, ten years ago this week, although many people still falsely remember them as having been declared guilty, and the cases legacy has only become more and more fraught. It has become a touchstone for many on the far right, who have cited it to defend everyone from George Zimmerman to Donald Trump. It chastened the media until it didnt and kneecapped movements at Duke and elsewhere to address issues of racism, sexism, and classism.

It not only launched Spencers career, but that of White House adviser Stephen Miller, too. On the morning of Spencers talk at the Thai restaurant, Miller who was then a senior at Duke published a column in the student newspaper titled A Portrait of Radicalism, just a few days after he appeared on Bill OReillys Fox News show to chastise Dukes faculty. Donald Trump didnt have much to say about the scandal at the time; he hadnt yet joined Twitter and was devoting his cable-news appearances to his simmering feud with Rosie ODonnell. But Miller seemed interested in little else. He had become known to some at Duke as the Miller Outrage Machine for his willingness to take controversial stands in his biweekly Miller Time column, which he wrote for the campus newspaper as a way, he says, to defend the idea of America.

In it, Miller complained about Hollywoods lack of movies about the merits of capitalism, and wrote a column titled Sorry feminists, in which he declared, I simply wouldnt feel comfortable hiring a full-time male babysitter or driving down the street and seeing a group of women carrying heavy steel pillars to a construction site. In another piece, he called for the celebration of American cultures unprecedented depth and unparalleled greatness, and cited the following examples:

(Congratulations to Jackie Wilson, the only nonwhite member of Stephen Millers cultural canon, and congratulations to no women.)

But Miller devoted more of his column to the lacrosse scandal than any other topic. As with his early support of Trump, he separated himself with his willingness to defend the players when doing so was unthinkable to many. If you find yourself in the presence of a student who insists the lacrosse players are a bunch of racist criminals and that the players are guilty no matter what the evidence says put them in their place, Miller wrote. If you dont, I will. He took issue with the lack of due process in the case the prosecutor was later disbarred but his emerging priorities seemed to be influenced most by the reaction of Dukes faculty and people in the town of Durham, North Carolina, and he spent most of his time targeting the chants and screams of the Duke-and-Durham-Left who sprang into action as soon as it became clear that the alleged victims story could be used to propagate their destructive black-versus-white worldview.

Millers columns made him a sought-after guest for cable-news bookers desperate for a conservative campus voice. He was unusually media-savvy, said K. C. Johnson, a Brooklyn College professor who wrote a book about the case and met Miller several times. My sense of Stephen then and theres certainly nothing thats changed my mind is that criticism from what he would see as politically correct elements was not going to dissuade him from speaking up. Compared to other Duke students who appeared on TV, Miller delivered his arguments forcefully and coherently and withstood criticism. At one point, he appeared during prime time five nights in a single week, and regularly went on Nancy Graces show, where he displayed no fear of getting into fights. In one early appearance, Grace asked Miller about the initial indictments of two of the players:

Miller: I speak for many students when I say that were very, very concerned that two innocent people may have possibly

Grace: Oh, good lord! Do you have a sister?

Miller: Yes, I do.

Grace: I assume youve got a mother. I mean, your first concern is that somebody is falsely accused?

Miller: Dont tell me what my first concern is, please.

Miller was a true believer, as Kevin Miller (no relation), a local reporter who often appeared alongside him, told me. He might as well have been one of the lacrosse players, he said. At one point, Grace asked Stephen Miller, of the players, If they jumped off a cliff, would you jump off a cliff? When the case still looked dire, she asked, Have you filed your transfer papers yet? Kevin Miller said that he had received death threats during the trial, so imagine what it was like for Stephen.

The criticism made it even sweeter for Miller when the case fell apart. Ive been waiting a long time for this day, he said on CNN the night the charges against the three players were officially dropped. According to Politico, Miller believes he did as much as the players lawyers to exonerate them. I can see where he would feel vindicated, K. C. Johnson said. His basic take on the case proved to be correct, and he was right in a way that the establishment media the failing New York Times was not. It took a lot of guts to do what he did.

Millers experience as an unofficial spokesperson for the lacrosse players apparently gave him the confidence and the qualifications to become the official spokesperson for newly minted congresswoman Michele Bachmann, less than a year after graduating from Duke. In Congress, Miller bragged to colleagues about his TV hits from the lacrosse scandal, and three years later, National Journal cited his experience in the lacrosse case as the moment when he found his own talent for persuasion, in a piece declaring Miller the youngest of ten Young Hill Staffers to Watch. (Honesty tends to win most issues at the end of the day, Miller said.) Last year, Miller told Politico, The thing that Im proudest of is that I spoke out early and often on behalf of American legal principles in the Duke lacrosse case when it was not popular. (Miller did not return requests to comment for this story.)

When Miller joined the Trump presidential campaign, and later accepted a role in the White House, many of Trumps supporters remembered him. Just An Attaboy To The New Public Face Of Trumps Administration Stephan [sic] Miller. Also While A Student At Duke University, Miller Defended Three White Men Of The Lacrosse Team Who Were Falsely Accused Of Rape, read a post on the subreddit r/The_Donald. The lacrosse case had been Millers first experience lambasting the mainstream media while being a guest on mainstream media, and he seemed to have taken several lessons from the experience, including the value of remaining steadfast in the face of full-throated criticism and the potency of pitting one ethnic group against another. Trumps defense of his comments in the Access Hollywood tape This was locker-room banter was also a familiar one to Miller, who responded to the revelation of a lewd email sent by one of the lacrosse players (I plan on killing the bitches as soon as the[y] walk in and proceding [sic] to cut their skin off while cumming in my duke issue spandex) with a similar defense:

Miller also recognized the value of taking cues from Fox News. You know what you and your paper should do? Bill OReilly told him, at the end of one appearance. You get your own petition against [the faculty], and well see how many students sign it. And well have your back. Miller returned to campus and started a petition.

Miller met Richard Spencer during the lacrosse scandal, when the latter became a graduate adviser for the Duke Conservative Union, a student organization Miller led. While Miller has denied Spencers suggestion that Spencer served as a kind of mentor, their views on the lacrosse case meshed, and both felt aggrieved by Dukes faculty. Spencer says that he once served as a TA in a class about the history of genocide It was not a how-to course, he said, as reassurance and the professor accused him of subverting the class by arguing against intervention in Yugoslavia.

Spencer says that, at the time, he was only beginning to understand the medias power to shape a narrative. I learned some things from watching Stephen Miller, Spencer told me. I learned from the lacrosse case, and from Trump, that there is a value to perseverance, and theres a value to just keep going and keep pushing. Spencer submitted a column to the student paper that he says was rejected, but he didnt say much publicly about the case until his Thai-restaurant talk. That success and watching Millers cable-news performance made clear the personal benefits that could accrue for someone willing to provide a conservative counter-narrative in a young fresh package. I was, philosophically speaking, more or less the person I am today, he said. But the Duke lacrosse case catalyzed me to be a pugilist for my views. Im more combative and come out of the gate taking stands in a way that I wasnt then.

Spencer lasted less than a year as an editor at The American Conservative Scott McConnell said Spencers more radical inclinations werent yet fully apparent, and the bigger issue was that he wasnt really that great at copyediting and began writing for a variety of publications, including his own site, altright.com. In his writing, Spencer often cited the lacrosse case as an example of the problems with the liberal insistence on multiculturalism. In a 2010 piece titled White Devils: The Unbearable Whiteness of Duke Basketball, he praised Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski for the fact that his rosters often had more white players than other top college basketball teams, creating a singular program in which Anglo-Saxons and Europeans stand tall. Dukes reputation as a privileged, largely white institution, which Spencer found appealing, had fueled much of the vitriol leveled at the university during the lacrosse case. During the heights of the Duke Lacrosse Hoax, I didnt know how Coach K got away with it, Spencer wrote. Or how long the faculty would stand for a starting five that so represented White Privilege and the legacy of slavery.

Spencer followed that piece with another in 2015 called Where Have All The White Devils Gone?, in which he criticized the fact that the percentage of black players on Dukes roster had gone up since the lacrosse scandal. Spencer theorized that Krzyzewski had engaged in a politically correct makeover of his team, which, in Spencers worldview, had the unfortunate effect of giving white and black people a reason to interact. He suggested that the cause of white nationalism might require the dissolution of college and professional sports. There are tons of reasons for being highly skeptical of sports in America, Spencer told me. The reason that is uniquely identitarian is that, at a major college, you end up having white people rooting for black athletes that they would otherwise have nothing to do with.

Spencer was far from the only far-right writer who regularly referred to the case. The Duke lacrosse hoax has appeared regularly over the years on a range of sites, from Stormfront to Breitbart to The Daily Caller, almost always as a means of suggesting that the liberal establishment has yet again been too eager to ascribe guilt and, often, racist intent to accused people in a mind-boggling range of cases from Amanda Knox to the police officer who arrested Henry Louis Gates. This is turning out to be the Duke lacrosse case all over again, Rush Limbaugh said, after George Zimmerman was arrested for Trayvon Martins killing.

It didnt matter how nonsensical some of the comparisons were I dont recall the Duke lacrosse players shooting anyone, K. C. Johnson said because the case had become a dog-whistle for many on the right. Duke lacrosse was sort of the beginning of what, on the right, is hugely talked about now, which is the idea of hoax crimes, Michael Dougherty, the American Conservative editor, said. For the last five or ten years, hoax hate crimes were what fake news is now. In 2014, Breitbart listed the lacrosse case, alongside O. J. Simpson and Tawana Brawley, as one of 6 Times Black Americans Jumped to Racial Conclusions. (Many on the right were gleeful, in 2013, when the accuser in the lacrosse case, who was shown to have mental-health issues, was convicted of murdering her boyfriend.) As an earlier version of todays right-wing trolls, professors who spoke out about the campus culture at Duke had their emails posted on white-supremacist websites, where there were also posts instructing people to leave negative comments on ratemyprofessor.com. Even today, Lee Baker, one of the 88 professors who signed the ad calling for action, says his and other professors Wikipedia pages are occasionally edited to include disparaging remarks about their involvement.

While Donald Trump has never explicitly made much of the lacrosse case, it remains meaningful to many of his followers. In the spring of 2015, Ann Coulter wrote a series of columns in which she made rhetorical hay out of the lacrosse scandal, as she had done for years. There have been more stories about a rape by Duke lacrosse players that didnt happen than about the slew of child rapes by Hispanics that did, Coulter wrote. Around the same time, Donald Trump announced his candidacy by declaring that Mexico was sending people that have lots of problems Theyre rapists. And some, I assume, are good people. Last April, an NPR listener in New Haven, Connecticut, identified himself as a white male, and offered two words about why I support Donald Trump, and its Duke lacrosse.

Throughout the campaign, Trump supporters complained about Duke-lacrosse-style attacks on their candidate and his circle. President Trump believes in the presumption of innocence unlike Duke lacrosse hoaxers, Mike Cernovich, the alt-right journalist, wrote when Trump adviser Corey Lewandowski was accused of assaulting a journalist. When the Access Hollywood tape was released, Trump supporters cited Duke as evidence that the media was continuing its hatchet job, with one going so far as to photoshop Trumps head onto the body of a Duke lacrosse player:

The case was less meaningful to many of the younger people who seem to make up the alt-right I think you have to be at least 30 for Duke lacrosse to affect your consciousness, Richard Spencer said but it remains powerful as a moment that justifies the far rights narrative of modern American society. It was like a preview of the more dramatic racially charged cases of the last couple of years how those clear battle lines would get drawn and that the key things were not the facts of the case, George Hawley, a University of Alabama professor who is writing a book on the alt-right, said. Heidi Beirich, who tracks extremist groups for the Southern Poverty Law Center, says the lacrosse cases impact wasnt limited to race-related cases. It was a big issue in the mens-rights movement, she said. It was heavily discussed on the radical right as a concerted effort to damage the perception of white males the idea that this multicultural, bullshit, feminist society is setting us up, trying to destroy us, and undermining our behavior; that women are liars and you cant take them seriously; and that the mainstream media cabal is complicit.

The cabal had certainly done itself no favors. It was a journalistic tragedy, Dan Okrent, the former New York Times ombudsman, said. The case fulfilled every wet dream of a particular type of editors sensibility: white over black, privileged over poor, male over female, Okrent said. Most of the media didnt cover the case with near enough scrutiny. (A notable exception was Megyn Kelly, who made her name as a former lawyer covering the legal aspects of the case; Roger Ailess only criticism of Kelly at the time was, Megyn, you have to show vulnerability.) If there was an overarching lesson for the media, it was that fitting facts to a narrative was a dangerous game, and little since has suggested any deeply learned lessons: in 2014, Rolling Stones false rape story at UVA became another far-right touchstone. Twitter has only encouraged prejudgment across ideological lines without much evidence whether from conservative outlets insisting that something must be amiss within the Clinton Foundation, to liberal ones insisting President Trump is a Manchurian candidate hewing to the demands of Vladimir Putin. I suspect and I really stress the verb that it did have an effect for a while, Okrent said, of the humbling effect the lacrosse case had on the press. But the way things work in media culture is, if you see something delicious come your way, you forget that you overate last night.

On campus, the backlash against those who had spoken out so strongly in the beginning made it difficult to address the deeper issues that had come up. Some of my most skeptical and radical friends still harbor shame that they thought these men were guilty, Shadee Malaklou, a classmate of Millers who is now a professor at Beloit College, said. While some tried to argue that, regardless of the facts of the case, the outcry had been necessary, given the fact that a poor, black woman had little reason to believe the system would protect her in the face of wealthy, white defendants, the cases collapse made it more difficult to address the issues privilege, jock culture, the universitys poor relations with neighboring Durham that much of the campus agreed needed reckoning with. The players were declared innocent, legally speaking, but everyone could see there was something wrong with a group of 40 white college students hiring a black stripper, only to greet her arrival with one of the players saying, We asked for whites, not niggers.

Miller was one of the few prominent voices who didnt seem to think there was much of a problem at all. After the scandal first broke, he denounced calls for Duke students to become more engaged with Durham, which is more than one-third African-American, by calling it one of the last spots in America anyone would visit and declaring that Duke has about as many racists as Durham has museums. Millers concern in the lacrosse case was always clear: He routinely claimed that he was defending due process, and yet, when he condemned the lack of faculty outrage about the alleged rape of a white Duke student by a black man that happened after the lacrosse scandal, he did so two years before that case was properly adjudicated.

In many ways, Miller seems to have moved on from what ultimately vindicated him in the lacrosse case. At the time, he condemned the use of racist rhetoric (If somebody said to a black person or an Asian person or a Jewish person or any person something like that and I was around, I would put them in their place, because theres no place for that in America) and demanded that Dukes professors admit when they had made mistakes. He talked about how nongovernmental entities such as universities, or perhaps political campaigns, shouldnt get ahead of law enforcement in encouraging that someone be locked up.

More than anything else, he stuck to the facts. The reason Miller was right was he had the facts on his side, and he was willing to argue based on those facts, K. C. Johnson said. He wasnt claiming there were a million people from Massachusetts crossing in buses into New Hampshire. Its almost as if hes taken the willingness to engage in the rhetorical battle and forgotten that the reason you win is you have the facts on your side. Im not sure that lesson has stayed with him. In closing his American Conservative essay on the matter, Richard Spencer offered a warning. As is often the case, he wrote, those who seek power usually have the greatest pretensions of authenticity and moral outrage.

What the San Bernardino Shooters Facebook Page Reveals About Domestic Violence

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The state will appeal the ruling, but may not be able to get its controversial execution schedule back on track.

The history books will say: How could they not have known? How could they not have known these were North Koreas thoughts?

The sound of a police taser sparked a mass panic during Friday nights commute.

We urge all sides to no longer engage in mutual provocation and threats, Chinas foreign minister said on Friday.

The woman who will for the time being run DoEds Office of Civil Rights has has quite the career of ideological extremism and intense partisanship.

They say the change will save taxpayers $17,500 a year.

The fiery Maine governor admits he might not be an effective senator, but is considering a run anyway, and might even appoint himself to a seat.

The companies say the state broke rules to obtain the drugs, which are not supposed to be used in executions.

Ten years later, the case looms large in U.S. political culture. For starters, it launched the careers of Richard Spencer and Stephen Miller.

It felt like the heavens were falling, one local said.

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[T]hose tweetstorms and Facebook posts causes millions of people to tune in.

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Rather than blaming her for running an abysmal campaign and putting Trump in the White House.

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The proposal fulfills a Justin Trudeau campaign promise.

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The Duke Lacrosse Scandal and the Birth of the Alt-Right - New York Magazine