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Watchdog Documents 50 Hate Crime Hoaxes on College Campuses

The attentive folks at The College Fix, a student-run watchdog group, have pulled together more than 50 hate crime hoaxes perpetrated on U.S. college campuses during the last seven years.

Between 2012 and 2014, The College Fix reported nine such campus hate crime hoaxes, such as that of two black students at Montclair State University who complained of hateful and threatening graffiti on their dorm room doors targeting blacks and women.

One of the messages read, “Black Bitch you will die.” During their investigation, however, police discovered that the students had written the graffiti themselves.

The College Fix reported another 11 hate crime hoaxes in 2015, including the story of a female Muslim student who claimed she was “stalked and threatened by a guy with a gun.” It turned out that she had fabricated the entire incident.

Three “nooses” discovered hanging near the hall where Black Lives Matter had held a meeting at the University of Delaware turned out not to be nooses, but “remnants of paper lanterns” left over from an event.

In 2016, Elon University students were appalled by graffiti saying, “Bye Bye Latinos Hasta La Vista” after the presidential election. It was learned that a Latino student wrote the note.

In December of that year, a female Muslim Baruch College student complained she had been assaulted on a New York subway by “three drunk white men” who were shouting, “Donald Trump!” Police later arrested the woman herself for having made up the story.

In 2017, a group of liberal students had hung posters with the message “Report Illegal Aliens; America is a White Nation” in an effort to incriminate conservatives.

A black Air Force Academy cadet confessed that year to writing “Go home ni**er” on black students’ dorm room doors, while in Kentucky, a black man filed a false police report about N-word graffiti and a threat painted on his car near Kansas State University. Investigators learned the man himself had written the note.

Similarly, a threat on social media targeting black students at a Maryland high school last March turned out to have actually been written by a black student.

For a rundown of the list of campus hate crime hoaxes, see here.

Unsurprisingly, The College Fix was one of the first groups to unearth inconsistencies in the recent Jussie Smollett hate crime hoax, noting that the case “sounds a lot like college race hoaxes.”

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Vandal Spray Paints #MeToo On Iconic WWII Victory Kiss Statue In Downtown Sarasota

Damn Femi-Nazis. Update to this story. Via WISTV: People driving through downtown Sarasota were greeted with a shocking sight by a familiar statue – graffiti. Overnight, someone spray painted “#MeToo” on the Unconditional Surrender statue alone U.S. 41 near Marina Jacks. Police say they were called to the scene at North Gulfstream Avenue and Bayfront […]

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Oregon Legislators Push To Lower Voting Age To 16

In the never ending race to the bottom, Oregon state senator Shemia Fagan is introducing legislation that would lower the voting age in the state to 16.

Citing abortion and stripping away 2nd Amendment rights, Fagan introduced the legislation on Monday, at the behest of doorbelling-for-democrats operation known as the Bus Project.

Oregon Public Broadcasting reports:

“It’s time to lower the voting age in Oregon and to give our young people a chance to participate in the ballot, about their decisions that affect their homes, their clean air, their future, their schools and as we’ve seen, their very lives,” Fagan said.

The state senator pointed to the young activists who became engaged after the Parkland shooting in Florida, which left 17 people dead. They proved young people are active and should have a right to vote, Fagan said.

Several teenagers spoke in favor of the measure alongside Fagan on Monday at the Capitol.

“Why can I drive like an adult, pay taxes like an adult, have an abortion like an adult, be charged and sentenced like an adult, but I can’t vote like an adult?” asked Christine Bynum, a student at La Salle High School.

“We’re experts of our own experiences,” said Connor Gabor.

People are being sexually assaulted in their schools, Gabor said. People are being shot. Yet, they can’t vote for school board members or lawmakers, he said.

Senate Republican Leader Herman Baertschiger, Jr., R-Grants Pass, said 16-years-old is too young to vote. 

“… (They) are too young to enlist in the military, too young to own firearms, too young to own property, too young to enter into legal contracts, and too young to get married. But they are old enough to vote? People are not legally considered adults in this country until they are 18 years old, and I believe they shouldn’t be able to vote until then either. This is nothing more than an attempt to expand the voter rolls to sway elections,” he said. 

The Statesman Journal adds:

Several state lawmakers are introducing a bill that would ask voters to amend the Oregon Constitution to lower the voting age from 18 to 16 years old.

If the bill passes, the question would go to voters in the 2020 general election. The proposal would make Oregon the first in the nation to lower the statewide voting age to 16 years old.

Legislators backing the bill, including Sen. Shemia Fagan, D-Portland, held a press conference with high school students Monday at the Capitol to announce the legislation.

Fagan said 16- and 17-year-olds are affected by life-and-death issues that impact their future, a point driven home by the 2018 Parkland shooting at a Florida high school.

“Sixteen-year-olds are subject to our criminal justice system,” Fagan said. “They are couch surfing with friends while their families experience homelessness and they’re begging us to take action to protect their future.”

Not only are the democrats targeting more naive voters, but this is partially in response to the pushback against a massive gun grab bill, that was supposedly written by high schoolers. SB501 would turn gun owners in criminals if someone steals their gun, limit the amount of ammo one can buy to just 20 rounds a month, require background checks for purchasing ammo, and require jail time for anyone who who doesn’t turn in magazines that hold more than 5 rounds. Since many have criticized the gun bill as being written by 16 year olds to tell adults what they and can’t do, democrats are now trying to adult-ize the kids.

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LIVE VIDEO: Conservative Activist Laura Loomer Takes on Twitter – Outside NYC Headquarters

It’s no secret that the Silicon Valley tech giants discriminate against conservatives and conservative content.

Facebook has been shutting down traffic to conservative websites since the 2016 election.

The Gateway Pundit has reported extensively on the un-American policies deployed by the anti-conservative tech giants.

Conservative activist Laura Loomer was banned from Twitter in November for exposing radical Democrat Ilhan Omar.

Twitter and Facebook used the radical group CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) to get conservative Jewish activist Laura Loomer banned on Twitter.

Twitter and Facebook also use the far left radicals at the SPLC to crack down on and eliminate conservative content online.

On Wednesday Laura Loomer held a protest outside the Twitter headquarters in New York City.

OANN interviewed Laura Loomer this morning.

The post LIVE VIDEO: Conservative Activist Laura Loomer Takes on Twitter – Outside NYC Headquarters appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

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Do American Citizens’ Rights and Their Lives Matter or do Criminals’ Rights and Lives Matter More?

A house divided against itself cannot standAs the nation celebrated Presidents’ Day on Monday, the people are in the midst of sorting out the “National Emergency” that President Donald Trump declared this past Friday. But, despite the various “insights” and numerous concerns over the wisdom of the president’s actions, the real question remains as to whether the United States is facing a national emergency at the southern border or whether it is not. Despite whether the Border Wall has become the straw that may break the federal government’s back, there is a much bigger emergency in the United States than many may realize.

Since the 2016 election of Donald Trump as the President of the United States, an orchestrated effort has swept through the entire breadth and width of the “opposition” party to undermine the president by any means possible. The truth of the coup against a popularly elected president is only now coming to light. Unfortunately, the only coup that the elitist mainstream media moguls may report on has been the one in Venezuela. But, America is not only under attack on the southern border with Mexico; the nation is under attack from within the hallowed halls of the federal government and other dark quarters.

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Pope’s Biographer Questions If Jesus Had Homosexual Tendencies

Writer Austen Ivereigh, founder of the Catholic media organization “Catholic Voices” and biographer of Pope Francis, has openly questioned if Jesus Christ had “homosexual tendencies.”

According to LifeSiteNews, Ivereigh made his comments about the sexuality of Jesus on Twitter when discussing gay priests working in the Vatican. Ivereigh claimed that the Catholic Church refusing to allow these men to live openly with their identity makes the vow of chastity harder for them.

“The issue, as the priests make clear, isn’t celibacy and chastity, but having to hide who they are,” said Ivereigh. “The denial makes it impossible to live the vow in freedom. That’s what they’re saying.”

A Twitter user then replied to Ivereigh in Spanish, saying a priest should be heterosexual because he operates in “personal Christ” (in the persona of Christ). “They must serve God and his people without the entanglement of manifesting or hiding a hidden tendency,” said the Twitter user. “The priests, I believe, must be heterosexual. They act in persona Christi. And I do not think our Lord had homosexual tendencies.”

Ivereigh then questioned openly if the critic of his position is so sure that Jesus did not have homosexual tendencies. “Why do you say that our Lord did not have homosexual tendencies? From what signs or sayings or gestures do you deduce this?” asked Ivereigh.

Christians of varying denominations generally agree that Jesus Christ not only lived a sinless life but also had no temptation to sin, which would mean he had no homosexual tendencies, not to mention lustful desires for women. Yet Ivereigh (the Pope’s biographer) raised the question about “tendencies” Jesus might have had.

Joseph Shaw of LifeSiteNews says of Ivereigh’s position: “Our Lord Jesus Christ was sinless in his earthly life. More than that, he was free from Original Sin and all its effects and implications for his human soul and personality. More even than that, since he was conceived by the Holy Spirit, it was the Holy Spirit which guided his growth and development. This is why it would be theologically erroneous to represent Christ as physically deformed, or as physically ugly. The same goes for his psychological make-up in his human nature.”

Ivereigh’s comments about gay priests living openly follows a recently released book by openly gay sociologist Frederic Martel, which claims that a gay subculture of priests currently resides in the Vatican. Some Catholics have cautioned that while the book speaks certain truths, its agenda cannot be overlooked. From LifeSiteNews:

Martel claims in his book that the majority of the clergymen working in the Vatican are homosexuals, but this claim must be tempered by his patently false belief that all those who fight homosexuality are themselves homosexual. However, it’s plausible that he spoke with many high-ranking prelates and priests and, being himself a homosexual, has had direct access to some homosexually active clergymen in the Vatican. Martel’s specific description of the state of affairs in the Vatican, he says, is based on interviews with 41 cardinals, 52 bishops and monsignors, and 45 papal nuncios, as well as 200 priests and seminarians (and with the help of some 80 correspondents, translators, and collaborators).

Monsignor Battista Ricca, the controversial head of Santa Marta – the Pope’s residence – is said to have invited Martel for a visit at Santa Marta. Ricca, notorious for his homosexual exploits, seems to have been a key player granting Martel access to the Vatican and its homosexual network.

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Thomas concurs with Trump: The time has come for SCOTUS to rethink Sullivan and defamation of public officials

Alternate headline: Clarence Thomas becomes Donald Trump’s new favorite Supreme Court justice. Should public figured have to surmount a higher level of evidence in order to prevail in libel and slander actions? Media outlets certainly want that to be the case, and public figures from Donald Trump on down often express their frustration over (allegedly) false reporting for which they have no resort.

Trump has at times insisted that Congress make it a lot easier for him and others similarly situated to sue for libel and slander. Today, in a lengthy concurrence on a refusal to grant cert in a defamation case filed by Katherine McKee against Bill Cosby, Justice Thomas says the Supreme Court should take action itself to fix the problem it created:

McKee filed suit in federal court for defamation under state law, but her case was dismissed. Applying New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U. S. 254 (1964), and its progeny, the Court of Appeals concluded that, by disclosing her accusation to a reporter, McKee had “‘thrust’ herself to the ‘forefront’” of the public controversy over “sexual assault allegations implicating Cosby” and was therefore a “limited purpose public figure.” 874 F. 3d 54, 61–62 (CA1 2017) (citing Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., 418 U. S. 323, 345 (1974)). Under this Court’s First Amendment precedents, public figures are barred from recovering damages for defamation unless they can show that the statement at issue was made with “‘actual malice’—that is, with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not.” New York Times, supra, at 280. Like many plaintiffs subject to this “almost impossible” standard, McKee was unable to make that showing. See Dun & Bradstreet, Inc. v. Greenmoss Builders, Inc., 472 U. S. 749, 771 (1985) (White, J., concurring in judgment).

McKee asks us to review her classification as a limited-purpose public figure. I agree with the Court’s decision not to take up that fact-bound question. I write to explain why, in an appropriate case, we should reconsider the precedents that require courts to ask it in the first place.

New York Times and the Court’s decisions extending it were policy-driven decisions masquerading as constitutional law. Instead of simply applying the First Amendment as it was understood by the people who ratified it, the Court fashioned its own “‘federal rule[s]’” by balancing the “competing values at stake in defamation suits.” Gertz, supra, at 334, 348 (quoting New York Times, supra, at 279).

We should not continue to reflexively apply this policy-driven approach to the Constitution. Instead, we should carefully examine the original meaning of the First and Fourteenth Amendments. If the Constitution does not require public figures to satisfy an actual-malice standard in state-law defamation suits, then neither should we.

Oh my. Not only does Thomas excoriate the Sullivan court for creating a standard that had never been considered by the original framers of the First Amendment, he points out that libel and slander had also been criminal violations during that period. The reason for that enforcement was to prevent breaches of peace, and that usually meant that enforcement was stricter when it came to public officials rather than looser:

Far from increasing a public figure’s burden in a defamation action, the common law deemed libels against public figures to be, if anything, more serious and injurious than ordinary libels. See 3 Blackstone *124 (“Words also tending to scandalize a magistrate, or person in a public trust, are reputed more highly injurious than when spoken of a private man”); 4 id., at *150 (defining libels as “malicious defamations of any person, and especially a magistrate, made public by either printing, writing, signs, or pictures, in order to provoke him to wrath, or expose him to public hatred, contempt, and ridicule” (emphasis added)). Libel of a public official was deemed an offense “‘most dangerous to the people, and deserv[ing of] punishment, because the people may be deceived and reject the best citizens to their great injury, and it may be to the loss of their liberties.’” …

The common law did afford defendants a privilege to comment on public questions and matters of public interest. Starkie *237–*238. This privilege extended to the “public conduct of a public man,” which was a “matter of public interest” that could “be discussed with the fullest freedom” and “made the subject of hostile criticism.” Id., at *242. Under this privilege, “criticism may reasonably be applied to a public man in a public capacity which might not be applied to a private individual.” Ibid. And the privilege extended to the man’s character “‘so far as it may respect his fitness and qualifications for the office,’” which was in the interest of the people to know. White, supra, at 290 (quoting Clap, supra, at 169).

But the purposes underlying this privilege also defined its limits. Thus, the privilege applied only when the facts stated were true. Starkie *238, n. 4; White, supra, at 290. And the privilege did not afford the publisher an opportunity to defame the officer’s private character.

Thomas doesn’t argue for a return of lèse majeste, but he does argue that the Sullivan court and the decisions that followed from it ignored 175 years of jurisprudence and common law. No one had promoted an actual-malice standard in relation to the First Amendment until then, when the Supreme Court created it on its own. That was an illegitimate action against the sovereignty of the states and their operation of libel and slander laws, Thomas writes; if states want to create that standard, they could do so legislatively.

Thomas makes a compelling case, one which should be read all the way through, and carefully. Even though I’m a conceptual supporter of Sullivan, the case Thomas makes for egregious judicial overreach is fairly convincing — especially as Thomas argues that the court could have found for the New York Times without inventing a higher threshold. Sullivan could easily join the pantheon of judicial-activist decisions that have become, as Amy Coney Barrett once put it, “super-precedents” despite a lack of true constitutional standing.

Could, that is, not will. There may be no end of public figures who would like to test Thomas’ resolve on reopening Sullivan, but don’t expect many of his colleagues to join him on the quest. Not only is Sullivan the kind of “settled law” for which stare decisis exists, it defends an undeniable public good — the ability to criticize our governing and celebrity classes, which have uncomfortably merged over the last few decades since Sullivan. If there was an immediate and handy replacement at hand for protection against lèse majeste attempts by public officials and the wealthy to shut down negative coverage, correcting the constitutional record might be worth it. But waiting for 50 states to take action would leave a lot of legitimate reporting at risk, even while truly malicious actions could still be remedied in court under the current standard.

I suspect that Thomas knows that this is going nowhere too. He’s just leaving an intellectual marker and warning against expanding Sullivan‘s boundaries even further. Having been the target of some very derogatory commentary himself, no doubt Thomas is also leaving a marker of a more personal kind here as well.

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Most Americans Can’t Pass a Basic Citizenship Test. Here’s Why We Should Be Worried.

Can a nation survive ignorant of its past? We are testing that very question right now.

According to a recent survey by the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, most Americans would fail a basic citizenship test.

Axios published a roundup of how participants performed. The results weren’t good.

People did relatively well on the most basic questions. Seven out of 10 knew that Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence and that Franklin Roosevelt was president during World War II.

But only 43 percent knew that Woodrow Wilson was president during World War I (nearly one out of four thought it was Roosevelt), and only 56 percent knew which countries the U.S. fought in World War II.

Fewer than a third could correctly name three of the original 13 states.

More than six out of 10 incorrectly thought the Constitution was written in 1776. (It wasn’t written until 1787.)

Nearly four out of 10 thought Benjamin Franklin invented the light bulb.

Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., had the right response.

For sure, immigrants have some advantages in taking this test over native-born Americans. After all, they are likely studying to pass it as their citizenship depends on it.

There are, of course, plenty of other important aspects of citizenship besides knowing history. Even more important are the very ethos and ideas that ground our founding documents: the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.

It’s probably more consequential for our country, for instance, that the average citizen believes these documents to be fundamentally good, even if they don’t know what year they were written.

But the bottom line is this: Being ignorant of the past has real-world effects. It is inexcusable for Americans as a whole to be unaware of our past and the basic principles of our system of government.

It’s all the more concerning given that our celebration of “democracy.” Some, like former President Barack Obama, have even proposed mandating that all Americans vote.

Is it not concerning that as knowledge of our system, more Americans are being called upon to partake in that system by voting? Does that not flatly contradict the idea that democracy is the highest good?

That’s certainly the idea being pushed by those who want to abolish the Electoral College.

Given the decline of America’s historic and civic knowledge, perhaps we should consider how we ended up here.

Last October I covered the results of an equally depressing survey, and my conclusion was the same then as it is now:

As citizens, knowledge of the past and of civics is crucial. Lacking such knowledge is unhealthy for a free country, and even dangerous, given how bad political life can become.

One of our biggest problems today is that we often focus on tearing down our history rather than learning from it. That needs to change.

If these sobering test results tell us anything, it’s that we need to consider a fundamental change in how we approach education in the United States. And despite what some voices say, education funding is not the problem.

The U.S. ranks, globally, near the top in spending on elementary and secondary education, yet we don’t appear to be getting much bang for the buck. Perhaps it’s time we take a harder look at the public school monopoly that’s failing students and leaving generations of Americans without a basic understanding of our past.

More generally, we’ve failed to uphold Ronald Reagan’s call for an informed patriotism and more civic ritual—necessary qualities for the maintenance of a free country—in favor of negative and ideologically narrow accounts of America’s past now en vogue in our schools.

This is a recipe for a dark future and needs to change.

We need to fix this, for the sake of our republic.

The post Most Americans Can’t Pass a Basic Citizenship Test. Here’s Why We Should Be Worried. appeared first on The Daily Signal.

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BREAKING: Brothers Make New Bombshell Allegation Against Jussie Smollett

Federal law enforcement officials are investigating a new allegation made by the two brothers in the Jussie Smollett case that Smollett was involved in sending a hate letter to himself a week prior to the alleged attack.

“The FBI and the US Postal Inspection Service are currently investigating whether Jussie Smollett played a role in sending a threatening letter addressed to him at “Empire’s” Chicago studio prior to the alleged attack,” ABC News reported, after confirming with two federal officials. “The accusation, made by the two brothers who were persons of interest, has not been confirmed.”

On Monday, CBS News reported that the attack on Smollett was allegedly concocted because Smollett was upset that the incident involving the letter did not get a “bigger reaction.”

In a separate development, Chicago Police “are investigating a tip that on the night ‘Empire’ actor Jussie Smollett reported being attacked by two masked men he was in an elevator of his apartment building with two brothers later arrested and released from custody in the probe,” the Associated Press reported.

Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said that tip came from someone who either lived in the building or was visiting someone in the building at the time.

The news comes as the brothers and their attorney left court where they were expected to testify against Smollett in front of a grand jury.

The Daily Mail reported on Monday that Smollett had participated in a play that was similar to the alleged attack hours before the attack happened.

“He had been in New York City for a reading of the play Take Me Out, with sources telling DailyMail.com that Smollett was being considered to appear in a possible revival of the Tony-winning production about a biracial baseball star who comes out as gay,” The Daily Mail reported. “The script for that play finds the lead character being attacked by a new pitcher who joins the team. That character uses the same racial slurs Smollett told police his attackers screamed at him, including ‘f****t’ and ‘n****r.'”

Over the weekend, TMZ reported that Chicago law enforcement officials were suspicious of Smollett early on in their investigation:

The sources say there were red flags from the get-go. Cops were extremely suspicious when Jussie took them out to the area where he said he was attacked and pointed to an obscure camera saying how happy he was that the attack was on video. Turns out the camera was pointing in the wrong direction. Cops thought it was weird he knew the location of that camera.

And, there’s this. We’re told investigators didn’t believe the 2 alleged attackers screamed, “This is MAGA country,” because, “Not a single Trump supporter watches ‘Empire.'”

Also on Monday, The Blast reported that whoever sent the letter to Smollett could receive upto five years in prison, if convicted. The Blast reported that the charge would be “mailing threatening communications,” which states:

Whoever knowingly so deposits or causes to be delivered as aforesaid, any communication with or without a name or designating mark subscribed thereto, addressed to any other person and containing any threat to kidnap any person or any threat to injure the person of the addressee or of another, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.

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