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Rep. Foxx: It Was Wrong Then And It’s Wrong Now

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Matthew Shepard ABC News 20/20 Story Was Discredited The Day It Aired

 

Journalism, like milk, should come with freshness dates. Then, when it starts to smell bad and offend your senses, you’ll know it’s expired.

In researching the political fallout in North Carolina after Virginia Foxx’s now infamous comment about the murder of Matthew Shepard, I came across a blog post in the News & Record, Greensboro, North Carolina’s online version of its local daily newspaper. The paper’s own editorial writer, Doug Clark, offers this piece: “ABC News report supports Foxx’s statement“, in which he writes, “But the long-accepted account, that Shepard’s killing was an anti-gay hate crime, was credibly challenged in this well-reported ABC News story all the way back in 2004.”

Wow. As a journalist, Clark isn’t even bothering to subscribe to the tenets of his industry: Check the facts. Had he, he would have known that the 20/20 story he refers to was just that, a story, widely discredited by the time it even aired. In fact, Glaad produced a “Viewer’s Guide” and released it the day the story aired. Refuting the “facts” in the piece, Glaad’s Executive Director said of 20/20’s piece, “this simply is not a credible piece of journalism“. Too bad Clark didn’t bother to delve deep enough into the history surrounding the Shepard murder or the ABC News 20/20 story, “New Details Emerge in Matthew Shepard Murder“.

The 20/20 story is based on ideas that Shepard’s murder was not a hate crime, that it occurred not because of hatred of gays, but, as Rep. Foxx said, was “in the commitment of a robbery”, with drugs being the central cause. People like Virginia Foxx and her ilk want you to believe that Matthew Shepard’s murder wasn’t a hate crime. Deep down, they want to believe that there is no such thing as a hate crime, as they think hate crime legislation is a “1984” concept in which Big Brother can monitor your thoughts. They’re wrong, because they don’t understand the meaning of “hate crime” and can’t see, as Kathleen Parker wrote this week, why a hate crime is even more despicable, because a hate crime “is really two crimes — one against the individual and another against the group to which he belongs. By that definition, Shepard’s murder may be viewed as a terrorist act against all gays, who would have felt more fearful as a result.”

Speaking of “terrorist acts”, in November, 1999, five years before the ABC News 20/20 piece, Dave Cullen of Salon interviewed Sgt. Rob DeBree, the chief investigator in the case, who said, “They knew damn well he was gay. […] It started out as a robbery and burglary, and I sincerely believe the other activity was because he was gay. […] That is one thousand percent torture, what occurred to that boy.” Cullen also wrote, in the 1999 piece, “A just-unsealed confession demolishes the “gay panic” defense. Too bad the media wasn’t around to hear it.” 

But the media wasn’t around later, in 2004, either, when the ABC News 20/20 piece aired, nor again, last week, when Clark wrote his story. And the damage has been done. How do we know? Read some of the comments from Clark’s blog, evidence of misinformed Americans too happy in their hatred to challenge someone who speaks to their values:

“Shepard’s murder has become an urban legend and a rallying point for gays to demand special treatment, regardless of the fact that it’s been misrepresented as a hate crime.
The Dems/libs can’t afford to have the truth thrown up in their face.”

“This revelation is not new. I heard about it years ago, but of course the ideological liberal media played it down as they always do when it goes against their agenda. And Puleeze don’t tell me they have no agenda.”

“Why wasn’t it [a story in that paper discussing the Foxx story] headlined, “Rep. Foxx exposes truth in Shepard case” or “Foxx discloses facts on Gay lie?””

Then, Clark himself responds to some of the comments:

“I found the ABC report well-researched and credible, but I can’t say for sure that it represents the truth about the case. And if I can’t be sure what the truth is, I also can’t say absolutely what’s a lie. I would be surprised if you can be any more certain than I am.”

Those who have done their research, Mr. Clark, indeed can be more ertain of what’s truth and what’s not. Like, Moisés Kaufman, author of The Laramie Project, who according to Glaad, “interviewed more than 200 residents of Laramie in 1998 and 1999″. Let’s try to undo some of this damage. Because there are many who have researched both the Shepard murder and the ABC 20/20 story. And, thanks to them, we do know the truth.

 

Please take a moment to join our Facebook group, FireFoxx, dedicated to the resignation of Virginia Foxx.
    

For more on the Matthew Shepard story, read:

Still bashing Matthew Shepard
Matthew Shepard and hate crimes
Rewriting the Motives Behind Matthew Shepard’s Murder

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‘I’m Not Suicidal’: Kari Lake Pushes Hillary Clinton Murder Conspiracy Theory

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15 hours ago

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April 22, 2024

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Republican U.S. Senate candidate Kari Lake is promoting a conspiracy theory suggesting Hillary Clinton wants to assassinate her. Her remarks came just one day before she lost her attempt to have the Supreme Court review what some have called her conspiracy-theory fueled lawsuit about electronic voting machines.

“Lake, who filed the lawsuit during her failed campaign for governor in 2022, challenged whether the state’s electronic voting machines assured ‘a fair and accurate vote.’ Two lower courts dismissed the suit, finding that Lake and former Republican state lawmaker Mark Finchem had not been harmed in a way that allowed them to sue,” CNN reported Monday.

Also on Monday Law&Crime reported that when she filed her lawsuit, a Dominion Voting Systems spokesperson “rejected Lake’s cybersecurity claim, telling Law&Crime it was ‘implausible and conspiratorial.'”

Democracy Docket, founded by top Democratic elections attorney Marc Elias, called it “the end of the road for a conspiratorial lawsuit,” and Lake and Fincham, “election deniers.”

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Lake, a far-right conspiracy theorist who has yet to concede the 2022 election, which she lost to Democrat Katie Hobbs, has a history of pushing exaggerated and baseless claims.

On Sunday, as MeidasTouch Network reported, Lake promoted an old, anti-Clinton conspiracy theory but twisted it to try to make it appear she was in danger from former U.S. Secretary of State and former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

Lake on Newsmax listened to a clip of Secretary Clinton calling Trump’s fondness for Russian President Vladimir Putin a “bromance,” and saying the ex-president is “just gaga over Putin, because Putin does what he would like to do: kill his opposition, imprison his opposition, drive, you know, journalists and others into exile, rule without any check or balance.”

Then Lake promoted a thoroughly debunked conspiracy theory by responding, “Oh, boy. Oh, that’s really rich coming from a woman like Hillary Clinton, who’s, how many of her friends have just like, mysteriously died or committed suicide?”

“I mean, honestly, that’s rich of her. What President Trump wants is to root out the corruption and deliver our government back to We The People and she looks very nervous. She talked about her friend Mark Elias, Mark Elias has meddled in in his and his cohorts have meddled in the elections.”

She called Democratic policies, “destructive, deadly and frankly, in some ways, diabolical,”and added, “it’s almost comical that Hillary Clinton is talking about Trump wanting to kill his opponents.”

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“I just want to say as I’m as I’m speaking about this topic, I want everyone out there to know that my brakes on my car have recently been checked and they work. I’m not suicidal. And Hillary, I don’t mean any harm to you. Please don’t send your henchmen out to me. We understand what you’re about. ”

Watch below or at this link.

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‘Old and Tired and Mad’: Trump’s Demeanor in Court Detailed by Rachel Maddow

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18 hours ago

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April 22, 2024

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MSNBC top host Rachel Maddow, inside Manhattan’s Criminal Courthouse on Monday declared Donald Trump appeared “old and tired and mad,” as she delivered observations about the ex-president on trial for 34 counts of falsification of business records alleged in the alleged pursuit of election interference to protect his 2016 presidential run.

Trump “seems considerably older, and he seems annoyed. Resigned, maybe, angry. he seems like a man who’s miserable to be here,” the award-winning journalist told MSNBC viewers Monday afternoon.

“I’m no body language expert,” she conceded, “and this is just my observation. He seemed old and tired and mad.”

The New York Times’ Susanne Craig, from inside the courthouse Monday morning reported: “Trump is struggling to stay awake. His eyes were closed for a short period. He was jolted awake when Todd Blanche, his lawyer, nudged him while sliding a note in front of him.”

The Biden campaign was only too happy to pick up and report Craig’s observation, adding “feeble.”

Former Obama senior advisor David Axelrod, pointing to his piece at The Atlantic, wrote of Trump: “He has charmed & conned, schemed & marauded his way through life. He was bred that way. But the weariness & vulnerability captured in courtroom images betray a growing sense in Trump that he could wind up as the thing his old man most reviled:
A loser.”

Watch Maddow’s remarks below or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Election Interference’ and ‘Corruption’: Experts Explain Trump Prosecution Opening Argument

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News

‘Election Interference’ and ‘Corruption’: Experts Explain Trump Prosecution Opening Argument

Published

20 hours ago

on

April 22, 2024

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Prosecutors for the State of New York in their opening statement drew a direct line between the October 2016  “Access Hollywood” leaked audio and Donald Trump’s alleged “hush money” payoff to two women, including the adult film actress Stormy Daniels, telling the jury it was “election fraud, pure and simple.”

Legal experts are dissecting the prosecution’s opening argument. Professor of law, MSNBC contributor and former FBI General Counsel Andrew Weissmann summed it up, saying New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg “squarely places the NY criminal trial in the election interference/corruption bucket– exactly what the DC and GA indictments allege, just 4 years later.”

“And the NY alleged ‘cover up’ is reminiscent of the two MAL [Mar-a-Lago] alleged obstruction schemes post-presidency, to keep prosecutors from uncovering evidence of that scheme,” Weissmann added.

Prosecutor Matthew Colangelo late Monday morning in his 45-minute opening argument told jurors, “This case is about criminal conspiracy and a cover up,” according to MSNBC’s Joyce Vance.

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“The defendant, Donald Trump, orchestrated a criminal scheme to corrupt the 2016 presidential election,” Colangelo told jurors, CNN reports. “Then he covered up that criminal conspiracy by lying in his New York business records over and over and over again.”

“This was a planned, coordinated long-running conspiracy to influence the 2016 election, to help Donald Trump get elected through illegal expenditures,” Colangelo, a former U.S. Department of Justice Acting Associate Attorney General, told jurors.

“Another story about sexual infidelity, especially with a porn star, on the heels of the Access Hollywood tape would have been devastating to his campaign,” Colangelo added. “’So at Trump’s direction, Cohen negotiated the deal to buy Daniels’ story,’ and prevent it from becoming public before the election.”

“It was election fraud, pure and simple.”

Vance, an MSNBC legal analyst, professor of law and former U.S. Attorney, explains: “The scheme the prosecution is outlining is catch & kill to elect Trump-awful but lawful. Trump crossed the line into illegality when he created false business records to conceal his payments to Cohen to cover up the payments to Stormy Daniels.”

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“It’s always the cover up,” she adds.

Professor of law and former Deputy Assistant Attorney General Harry Litman adds, the prosecution told jurors “a straight election-interference story.”

Colangelo, Litman says, told jurors that Trump’s then personal attorney Micheal Cohen “then discussed the [Stormy] situation with Trump who was adamant he did not want the story to come out. Another story…on the heels of the Access Hollywood tape would have been devastating to his campaign.”

MSNBC legal contributor Katie Phang describes Colangelo’s opening argument, saying he is “working methodically and chronologically through the conspiracy, identifying the main characters and their involvement. He speaks clearly and succintly [sic].”

Trump has been criminally indicted in four separate cases and is facing a total of 88 felony charges, including 34 in his New York criminal trial for alleged falsification of business records to hide payments of hush money to an adult film actress and one other woman, in an alleged effort to suppress their stories and protect his 2016 presidential campaign, which could be deemed election interference.

Watch an MSNBC clip below or at this link.

 

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