Fake News Is Getting People Killed—The Story Behind St. Louis

An important follow-up report on the violent attack against Catholics in St. Louis appears in The Gateway Pundit. (The publication is quartered in St. Louis, so their account of events is firsthand.) They are reporting that, prior to the Catholic prayer rally, bulletins were posted on social media that called it a “KKK”/ “White Nationalist” event.

According to Gateway Pundit, St. Louis Treasurer Tishaura Jones called the Catholic prayer rally a KKK event:

A St. Louis publication, Real STL News, called the Catholic event a gathering of “White Nationalists.” I was able to verify on Facebook that the the people who attacked the Catholic group had seen this disinformation. Remember “Blue Umbrella Man” from my previous report? Here’s his picture to refresh your memory:

Gateway Pundit was able to track down “Blue Umbrella Man’s” Facebook page. And on that page you can find a post that came from Real STL News:

FROM THE ARTICLE: “This Saturday a group of White Nationalists and Trump supporters will allegedly be gathering at Art Hill in Forest Park to defend the statue of the anti-semitic Crusader King Louis IX.”

Real STL News caters to the Black community, and their Facebook page shows that they have more than 200,000 FB followers—quite a large audience. Which makes their disinformation all the more dangerous. And deadly.

Gateway Pundit reported that the elderly man being attacked in the image above was knocked unconscious. It turns out that “Blue Umbrella Man” hit him in the jaw with brass knuckles. He could have been killed. And all because a newspaper (and a local politician) falsely reported that the event was a gathering of White supremacists, when, in reality, it was just a Catholic prayer rally. So, let that be a lesson for the future. The next time your church has a pancake breakfast, make sure the papers get their facts straight, or your next church event may be a funeral.

Chris Cuomo Blames the Victim

The problem with FakeNews, of course, is not limited to small and obscure media outlets. The majors are guilty too. Remember that other St. Louis mob that targeted a private residential neighborhood only to be met with angry homeowners who were ready and willing to defend themselves? Mark McCloskey was the husband who defended his home, and he was interviewed by Chris Cuomo on CNN. The interview didn’t go well for Cuomo or CNN, as the CNN Youtube channel shows. The response to the interview, judging by viewer reactions and comments, was overwhelmingly negative. All throughout the interview, Cuomo calls the man some variation of “the face of White resistance to ‘Black Lives Matter.'”

Cuomo Videos 1 & 2

“Image of White Resistance”

But video footage shows that the mob included a mixture of races, including many Whites. McCloskey was not pointing his rifle at a group of Blacks at all. He was standing on his own front porch as a mob broke down his gate and entered onto private property while shouting and chanting and beating a drum. Cuomo and CNN took a clear case of valid self-defense and turned it into a story about White racism. In doing so, they blamed the victims and protected the guilty.

Now just think about that for a moment in the context of the story above. Cuomo and CNN engaged in exactly the same disinformation campaign of Real STL News by tarring innocent people with the smear of racism.

And the mob that broke down McCloskey’s gate? They’re “peaceful protesters.” Those aren’t Cuomo’s exact words, but that’s the gist of his meaning. For example, in the first video above, Cuomo asks McCloskey whether anything happened to him or his property, implying that the absence of harm demonstrated the mob’s peaceful intentions. Cuomo ignores the obvious explanation, namely, that the guns acted as a deterrent force, as anyone with commonsense should realize. During the Rodney King riots, the stores that weren’t looted and burned to the ground were those whose storeowners defended them with firearms.

Cuomo Video 3

In the clip below, Cuomo explains that his assumption that the crowd is peaceful comes from a slogan on a single protester’s T-shirt.

Obviously the slogan on a person’s T-shirt is evidence of nothing, as the photos below reveal. Read the slogan on the man’s shirt who is accused of cracking a cop’s head with a baseball bat:

Love is always the answer.

From: Peaceful Protester who wields bat lovingly.

The Consequences of Fake News

The fallout from irresponsible and reckless journalism should be obvious. We know from the #metoo movement what a chilling impact it has on our justice system when victims are blamed or not believed. Good people lose faith in the system while violent criminals go unpunished. Indeed it is a bad omen that, today, violent looters and vandals are being bailed out or released without charges—all of this coming from an anarchic leftist movement. The cities and streets are essentially being handed over to the criminals. And sure enough, because there are no consequences, the bad guys showed up to the McCloskeys a second time:

Would You Like to Be the “Face of White Racism”??

And what do McCloskey’s neighbors think? They condemned the McCloskeys!! Not the mob of 500. That’s what happens when people realize that no one’s on their side. It is the direct consequence of the mob’s terrorism, and it worked. With the help of bad civic leadership, a weak police force and justice system, and unethical journalism, the residents were too fearful to say what thousands are saying everywhere, namely that the McCloskeys were in the right!

But let’s try to appreciate their point of view for a moment. The McCloskey neighbors are justifiably scared to death of being linked to neighbors that were set upon by CNN and tarred with the death sentence of “White racism.” It might get them targeted. It might get them on CNN! Which might get them fired from their jobs. Or it might even get them killed.

Of course, CNN is not new to this game. They did the very same thing to Nick Sandmann, the MAGA-hat boy accused of mocking an elderly Native American, later exonerated by video evidence. The mob came after poor Nick, threatening his school, his future, and even his life. And just like the St. Louis Catholic prayer group, the mob was inflamed by false and incendiary commentary from the media. Reza Aslan, a CNN host at the time, described Sandmann as having the most “punchable face.” But justice was served to CNN. They got sued and eventually agreed to a settlement with Sandmann for an undisclosed amount of money.

Time Machine to Tulsa

The liberal press targeted Sandmann because he represented everything they hate—pro-life, pro-Trump Christians. They could very well have destroyed the boy’s future. Will he have trouble getting into college? Will he be harassed in college? Will he have trouble finding work down the road? The press wields a lot of power. And if used unethically, that power can ruin lives. That’s what history teaches us. That’s what Tulsa teaches us.

Recently President Trump was criticized for having a rally in Tulsa because of the history of racial violence in that city, one of the deadliest instances occurring nearly a century ago. The Tulsa race riot has been the subject of several documentaries, including one that is currently in production. You can learn about this terrible slaughter of Black people in this History Channel documentary.

But the most important lesson of Tulsa is the one that needs to be learned by Chris Cuomo and the rest of the media. At minute 18, the documentary blames the riots on dishonest and inflammatory newspaper headlines about an alleged incident on an elevator between a Black man and a White woman. In a classic case of trial by newspaper, a young Black man was essentially convicted, in the eyes of the public, of raping a White woman. No benefit of a trial. No presumption of innocence. The Black community was justifiably concerned that the young man would be taken from the jail and lynched, so men from the community offered to assist the police in protecting the young man. When news circulated in the White community that a group of Black men showed up to the jail with guns, it ignited a two-day riot in which the Black community of Greenwood was burned to the ground and 300 Blacks were slaughtered, including unarmed women and children.

The whole sordid story of Tulsa is an object lesson on the evil consequences of unethical and dangerous FakeNews. But a century later, the press does not seem to have learned its lesson. Fake news continues to foment violence and civil unrest. But the real question is this. Are we going to stand by and let this continue to happen?

DEMOCRATS NEED TO STOP DEMONIZING THEIR POLITICAL OPPONENTS

The world becomes a crazy place when people start to believe, as too many Democrats apparently do, that the ends justify the means. It’s simply not the case that everyone who agrees with you politically is good, and everyone who disagrees is evil. When you start believing this, you get the crazy bizarro world of Democrat extremists:

  • Nick Sandmann becomes the face of evil.
  • “Blue Umbrella Man” with the brass knuckles becomes a “peaceful protester.”

And there are real consequences to such an abject moral inversion when, through FakeNews, good is called evil, and evil is called good, as history teaches us. The real and tragic effect of FakeNews, going all the way back to Nero, is that the good and innocent are made to suffer. This is what happened to the Christians under Nero who were falsely accused of setting fire to Rome. This is what happened to the Black community of Greenwood in Tulsa nearly a century ago. And this is what is happening today to anyone who opposes the Democratic Party. They become the victims of the Left’s Neronian journalism:

  • The St. Louis prayer group was attacked after Democrat Tishaura Jones called them “KKK” and a publication called them “White Nationalists and Trump supporters.”
  • The McCloskeys were smeared as the face of “White resistance to BLM” by Chris Cuomo, who also didn’t hesitate to link them to Trump (see video #2) even though they are, in fact, registered Democrats. Really, this shouldn’t have to be said, but the truth is that there is universal agreement about the cruel and inexcusable murder of George Floyd. Derek Chauvin is a MURDERER, and he deserves the full punishment of the law. TRUMP AND HIS SUPPORTERS AGREE ON THIS!!! Thus, Chris Cuomo’s talk about “White resistance to Black Lives Matter” is a COMPLETE FABRICATION.

What Happens When Good Is Called Evil and Evil Is Called Good? (Is. 5:20)

But Cuomo’s reckless and dangerous defamations were not without effect. The effect of treating the McCloskeys like criminals is that they received a criminal’s punishment.

  • They were served with a warrant and their weapons were confiscated by St. Louis police, simply for defending their property.
  • Their neighbors, out of fear and cowardice, have denounced the McCloskeys in an open letter.
  • There is a formal movement to have the McCloskeys, who are both lawyers, disbarred.

As far as NewWalden can tell, CNN has not reported on any of the tragic fallout from their defamation of the McCloskeys. Nor did they ever report on the Catholic prayer group that was attacked. And even more shocking, but also a consequence of the moral inversion happening in the Democratic party, the very same Democratic prosecutor that issued a warrant against the McCloskeys has done nothing in the case of Blue Umbrella Man. Today, he is still a free man.

It goes without saying that we cannot stand by and allow these injustices to continue. Because if we do nothing today, tomorrow, the mob (or CNN) may come after us. We owe it to all of the good citizens of our country to stand up for truth, justice, and the rule of law, for the consequences of not doing so are just too terrible to contemplate.

Update

You can find an important update to this article here.

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