Topic: WorldNetDaily
An anonymously written June 21 WorldNetDaily article tries to push the narrative it wants:
Trump supporter Tony Foreman is in intensive care after he was stabbed nine times following a “free speech rally” in Santa Monica, California, on Saturday.
Now some are claiming the June 17 stabbing is a hate crime because they claim Foreman was targeted for his pro-Trump views. The stabbing reportedly came after he left a sanctuary-city protest.
Foreman works as a bodyguard for Tim Gionet, an Internet personality known as“BakedAlaska,” his Twitter handle. He is also a member of Oathkeepers, a group of veterans who provide security at pro-Trump rallies.
“This was politically motivated,” Omar Navarro told Fox 11. “That’s a concern because he’s a good friend of mine. I’m just really shocked someone would do this. What happened to free speech?”
[...]
Gionet told the news station, “We don’t know if it was politically motivated, but we do know there were some racial slurs for him being white that were said to him.”
He added: “It’s been pretty heartbreaking. He’s lucky to be alive getting stabbed nine times.
Gionet, who claimed the assailants shouted “white boy & cracker,” tweeted: “LAPD detective tells me the last thing Tony heard before blacking out was: ‘You’re getting the shank White Boy.”
WND clearly wants to leave the impression that Foreman was stabbed by a mainstream Trump critic. But as usual when WND is pushing a narrative that conforms to its right-wing agenda, it omits inconvenient facts.
Gionet, it turns out, is more than an "Internet personality"; he's a prominent alt-right figure. Business Insider describes Gionet (aka Tim Treadstone) as a onetime "kind but often lonely social-media genius" and former BuzzFeed employee who embraced the alt-right "in a desperate quest to fill the void of loneliness with fame and attention — irrespective of the cost." He made anti-Semitic remarks that got him disinvited from the alt-right "Deploraball" held in conjunction with Trump's inauguration.
Also, the Oath Keepers that Foreman is a member of is more than "a group of veterans who provide security at pro-Trump rallies" -- it's a far-right militia group that recruits current and former military members, as well and police officers and first responders, to pledge allegiance only to the Constitution, not the government. As we've noted, the Oath Keepers push anti-government conspiracy theories, and WND itself has touted the anti-Obama hate rampant in the Oath Keepers, and members of the group even suggested that the presidential election would be delayed and that mass terrorism and riots would follow.
On top of all of this censorious whitewashing, the anonymous WND reporter also buries the fact that Foreman seems to have provoked his own stabbing. It's not until late in the article that it's mentioned via a Santa Monica police spokesman that the two people arrested in Foreman's stabbing "had been leaving a parking structure when Foreman 'made a comment to the suspects which led to an argument.' The three men got out of their cars, Rodriguez said, and a fist fight ensued."
WND also buries the fact that, contrary to Gionet's assertions, police say they have no evidence the attack was politically or racially motivated.
Call this another fake-news story from an organization responsible for so many of them.
