Many of you first became aware of me either through my coverage of the BLM/Antifa riots in 2020 or during the Biden-Harris border crisis, but it was far from my first time covering a chaotic event.
I had covered the protests at the Republican and Democratic conventions in 2016, but they were mainly filled with hippies who set up tents. Nothing crazy.
Then comes August 2017. A friend of mine at the time asked if I wanted to cover this rally Richard Spencer was hosting at a statue in Charlottesville. I had a car, and he did not. Since it was during the weekend, I said, “Sure, why not?”
Once we arrived, to say I was unprepared for the day ahead is an understatement. No helmet, no gas mask, no vest, and shorts instead of pants. Walking through the crowd of counter-protesters and Antifa, I was expecting to see a police line to separate the two sides to prevent fighting. Instead, I found myself in “no man’s land” between the groups. No police.
Because the park where the “Unite the Right” was being held had stairs, it created a minor buffer for people to come down, fight, and then fall back. Again and again, the two sides clashed. One man on the alt-right side picked up a metal newspaper stand and chucked it, hitting no one. Another was bleeding from the head after being pulled from the Antifa crowd. For my part, I was hit a few times by thrown sticks and paint bombs, along with pepper spray.
Upon entering the park, riot police, who had been on a nearby street, standing and watching the violence unfold, were pushing the rally goers out and into the street where counter-protesters were waiting. This led to more violence, unsurprisingly.
I was not present for the car ramming that resulted in the death of Heather Heyer. What most people do not realize is that the crash happened much later, after the majority of the “Unite the Right” crowd had marched away. We thought the day was over and were eating lunch at a nearby restaurant when the news broke.
It was this event that started it all for me. Despite conventional wisdom, it was then, and there, I wanted to continue reporting on hectic protests and riots. Not just for the adrenaline rush, but because it was important to document as much as possible since Charlottesville turned into a major story afterward.
This is why the recent news that the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) allegedly had at least one person on its payroll involved with the “Unite the Right” rally is interesting. SPLC defenders say the organization was simply paying informants, but the indictment says SPLC’s man on the inside was an organizer who helped with transportation for the event.
If that is indeed the case, it should be determined whether any of their funds were used or made it easier to make the rally happen.
At the end of the day, I don’t think it will matter if SPLC’s money was used for the rally, but I could be wrong. The Left’s reaction and weaponization of President Donald Trump’s “fine people on both sides” of the statue debate (not the riot) set the tone for the rest of his term. Heck, it is still used as an example by the Left against Trump nearly seven years later. Not to mention, I am sure people acted independently of the SPLC.
The fault for the violence mainly falls on state and local leaders who clearly did not prepare for the day. No roads were blocked off for the crowds, thus allowing a car to enter the march, and police stood by for a long time before doing anything. Much like the 2020 riots, a lot could have been prevented had the people in charge acted like they had a pair.
***
Julio Rosas is a field reporter at <a href="http://mostlypeaceful.media/">MostlyPeaceful.media</a> covering immigration, protests, and national flashpoints across the U.S. He writes at <a href="https://www.mostlypeaceful.media/">Mostlypeaceful.media</a> from where this essay is adapted with the author’s permission.

Organizers Of Saturday’s Alt Right Rally In Charlottesville, Virginia Hold News Conference

Charlottesville: My First Riot

Charlottesville

DW Opinion

Riots

Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC)

White Supremacists March with Torches in Charlottesville

Is This The Worst Political Psy-Op In Modern History?

Ku Klux Klan (KKK)

Leftists

Matt Walsh

Racism

Apparently, one of the most powerful leftist charities in the world has been donating money to groups like the Ku Klux Klan.
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a left-wing agitprop organization that raises roughly $100 million every year, has been handing money to white supremacists.
Why in the world would they do that? What the hell is going on?
Let&#8217;s begin with this premise. The demand for white supremacy on the Left outstrips the supply.
What do I mean by this?
I mean that people on the Left think, broadly speaking, that Americans are horrible racists. Then they look around at the world, and it turns out that Americans are some of the least racist people in history.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ben-shapiro-ep-2411?elementPosition=4&amp;row=5&amp;rowHeadline=Latest+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-974957" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1024x171.webp" alt="DailyWire+" width="1024" height="171" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1024x171.webp 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-300x50.webp 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-768x128.webp 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1536x256.webp 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-2048x341.webp 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a>
Americans basically rank dead last in racism on the planet right now. If you go to any other country on planet Earth, you will notice significantly more racism than there is in the United States.
If you go to Japan, there’s a fair bit of racism, as in South Korea, as in India.
But when you come to the United States, the polls suggest that the vast majority of Americans are fine with living next to people of different races and fine with intermarrying with people of other races. We have very high rates of ethnic intermarriage in America. We are an extraordinarily tolerant and diverse people.
But for the Left to make its play for a communitarian, centralized government, they have to constantly suggest that the government must be there to ram decency and goodness down the throats of those evil racists.
And the only way that you can sell that proposition is to create a false supply of racism, which brings us to the Southern Poverty Law Center.
The Southern Poverty Law Center is one of the most powerful left-wing groups in America. It&#8217;s a supposedly civil rights nonprofit originally founded in 1971, in Montgomery, Alabama. It built a reputation on using litigation and “research” — pretty shoddy “research” — to combat what they have called white supremacists and other domestic extremist groups while advocating for marginalized communities as their stated purpose. Over time, that turned into monitoring so-called extremist movements. They published a <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/resources/extremist-files/">hate group list</a>, a <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/hate-map/">hate map</a>, and they pushed programs on bias and intolerance.
This was used to mainline their intel into everything from media to education to law enforcement. The FBI, up until October 2025, was using inputs from the SPLC to determine the kinds of people to monitor.
Even in the private sector, SPLC data was being used. Amazon, under Jeff Bezos, said that it used SPLC data to decide whom to exclude from its Amazon Smile charity programs.
How prominent has the SPLC been? Since 2010, a search of The New York Times pulls up 711 instances where the SPLC is cited as an authority on hate or discrimination statistics.
They are the go-to. The New York Times sees a Jussie Smollett story, and they call up somebody from the SPLC to talk about it. There&#8217;s a Nick Fuentes story; they call the SPLC to talk about it. There&#8217;s a Charlie Kirk story, and they call the SPLC to talk about it. 
The New York Times repeatedly quoted the SPLC data in its coverage of the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, where the media routinely claimed that President Trump said there were &#8220;fine people on both sides,” which was not what he actually said. They lied about that, but the “Unite the Right” rally has been the calling card for entire swaths of the Left for a very, very long time. The New York Times even quoted the SPLC leadership to provide historical context for the rise of the alt-right.
In fact, a Google Gemini search of The New York Times, Washington Post, and USA Today shows that 20 to 25% of all analytical pieces on the “Unite the Right” rally referenced data or quoted directly from the SPLC.
Why is this relevant? 
It turns out that the SPLC provided some of the funding for the “Unite the Right” rally. Yesterday, the acting attorney general, Todd Blanch, announced criminal charges for the Southern Poverty Law Center. 
He said:
<blockquote>Today, a few minutes ago, in the Middle District of Alabama, a grand jury returned an 11 count indictment charging the Southern Poverty Law Center with six counts of wire fraud, four counts of bank fraud, and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering. According to the charges in the indictment, the SPLC is a nonprofit entity that purports to fight white supremacy and racial hatred by reporting on extremist groups and conducting research to inform law enforcement groups with the goal of dismantling these groups. As the indictment describes, the SPLC was not dismantling these groups. It was instead manufacturing the extremism it purports to oppose by paying sources to stoke racial hatred.</blockquote>
The DOJ is saying that the Southern Poverty Law Center was basically paying all sorts of white supremacists and extremists to generate more white supremacy so that they could continue fundraising.
Here&#8217;s what’s true virtually everywhere in the nonprofit world — they exist, theoretically, to solve problems. You give money to a nonprofit to solve a problem. If the problem goes away, you no longer give to that nonprofit.
Let&#8217;s say that you are the leader of a nonprofit or your leadership class of a nonprofit, and it turns out the thing you&#8217;re trying to solve has been pretty much solved in the United States — such as the “racism of the American population.”
When you launched in 1971, racism was a very, very real and ever-present part of American life. But today, racism is not even a blip on most Americans’ radar.
But you&#8217;re the Southern Poverty Law Center, and you need to raise some money.
So what do you do? You create a fake supply of white supremacy so you can go back to your donors and say, “The problem is worse than ever.”
The Southern Poverty Law Center is accused of using donor money to pay actual white supremacists.
It&#8217;s totally insane.
According to the <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/federal-grand-jury-charges-southern-poverty-law-center-wire-fraud-false-statements-and">press release</a> from the Justice Department, “Between 2014 and 2023, the SPLC secretly funneled more than $3 million and donated funds to individuals were associated with various violent extremist groups, including the Ku Klux Klan, Aryan Nations, National Socialist Party of America, the American Nazi Party, and Unite the Right.”
Unite the Right happens to be one that leaps off the page because the SPLC and the Left made bank off the “Unite the Right” rally for years and years and years. It was the key example they used over and over and over again to prove that the Right happened to be racist, even though the Right did not associate with the “Unite the Right” rally.
Blanche said on the Laura Ingraham Show on Tuesday that the Biden administration opened the investigation and then closed the investigation.
I wonder why.
“How did they get away with this for so long?” Ingraham asked.
“It&#8217;s a great question. I said today during the press conference that we know that this investigation was opened during the Biden administration and then mysteriously closed,” Blanche answered. “I really don&#8217;t have any information about why it was closed. And then we started again last year, the FBI did, working with the U.S. attorney in Alabama. And it&#8217;s extraordinarily egregious. You just talked about it. But imagine a donor to the SPLC, if they were told, ‘By the way, we&#8217;re going to give the money you&#8217;re giving us to the Ku Klux Klan &#8230; in some cases over $1 million.’ I mean, it&#8217;s incredible.”
We should remember the SPLC’s game was to label anyone remotely conservative an extremist.
This is the game. It does lend itself to the idea that much of what we consume in the media, on social media, and in politics is just not true. As for the “hatred” that a lot of Americans feel for other Americans, a lot of it is ginned up by groups like the SPLC.
The fakery here is quite real, and people make money off of it because the algorithm favors it. The algorithm favors amygdala-friendly responses.
The amygdala is the emotional center of your brain. It’s what responds to fear signals. The prefrontal cortex is the reasoning center of your brain, which says that the fear is not what you should be worried about. It&#8217;s not real.
The internet and virality are designed to appeal to your amygdala.
Thus, if you&#8217;re the SPLC, you say, “White supremacy is a threat to you and your family; it&#8217;s virulent, it&#8217;s violent, and it&#8217;s racist.” The whole pitch goes directly to the amygdala, because at no point does the prefrontal cortex kick in and say, “Wait, hold on, I know none of my neighbors are racist. They don&#8217;t like racism. They think it&#8217;s bad.”
But because the amygdala has kicked in, you now think worse of your neighbors, even though you have never really thought about the issue using the reasoning part of your brain.
The same is true in the algorithmic space online. There are a lot of accounts that go extremely viral because they use extraordinarily charged language, which tends to feature second-person pronouns. If I speak directly to you, the minute I say “you,” it&#8217;s probably firing up the centers in your brain that are more emotionally resonant. If I use words like “evil” or “wicked” or “soulless,” those are words that are much more likely to fire up the emotional centers of your brain than to appeal to your prefrontal cortex.
It&#8217;s a shortcut for politicians and influencers — and for groups like the SPLC. 
The more that you can use emotionally charged language that is second-person directed, the better you will do.
That&#8217;s why we all seem to be living in a world that is totally different from reality these days. The more time you spend online, the more you see this sort of stuff that is routinely retweeted and reposted, and is always deeply emotionally charged stuff.
That shtick is the entire game. And that&#8217;s why you feel alienated.
It&#8217;s why I&#8217;ve said a thousand times, and I will say it a thousand times more, that you ought to talk to your neighbors in person, because when you talk with your neighbors, your prefrontal cortex will kick in as opposed to your fear center in the amygdala.
And you might learn that the neighbor with whom you disagree about tax rates actually is not a racist.

TOPSHOT-US-RACISM-POLICE-SOCIAL

The Left Funds The KKK?

Ben Shapiro

Democrats

Opinion

In the days following the 2017 Charlottesville, Virginia, rally, the Southern Poverty Law Center raged against PayPal for &#8220;essentially&#8221; becoming &#8220;the banking system for white nationalism.&#8221;
At the same time, the leftist group was secretly transferring donor cash into the pocket of a white supremacist leader who helped plan the racist event, according to an indictment revealed by the Justice Department on Tuesday.
In the days after the August 11, 2017, rally, which turned into a deadly affair, the SPLC urged PayPal to crack down on accounts linked to so-called hate groups. PayPal, which already had policies in place on preventing racist groups from using its platform to transfer money, took more action after the &#8220;Unite the Right&#8221; rally and agreed to cut off payments to 34 more accounts linked to the event.
&#8220;PayPal, one of the world’s largest online payment processors, was integral in raising money to orchestrate the event,&#8221; the SPLC <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/resources/hatewatch/organizers-and-leaders-charlottesvilles-deadly-rally-raised-money-paypal/">stated</a> on its website in August 2017. &#8220;Organizers, speakers, and individual attendees relied on the platform to move funds in the run up to the ultimately deadly event.&#8221;
Keegan Hankes, analyst for the Southern Poverty Law Center, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/08/16/paypal-escalates-the-tech-industrys-war-on-white-supremacy/">told</a> The Washington Post at the time, &#8220;For the longest time, PayPal has essentially been the banking system for white nationalism. It’s a shame it took Charlottesville for them to take it seriously.&#8221;
On Tuesday, the SPLC was <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/lefty-anti-hate-group-paid-white-supremacist-to-plan-infamous-charlottesville-rally-indictment?topStoryPosition=undefined&amp;author=Zach+Jewell&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=0&amp;row=1&amp;rowHeadline=Top+Stories&amp;rowType=Top+Stories&amp;title=Lefty+%E2%80%98Anti-Hate%E2%80%99+Group+Paid+White+Supremacist+To+Plan+Infamous+Charlottesville+Rally%3A+Indictment">accused</a> of paying multiple people affiliated with extremist groups more than $3 million between 2014 and 2023 and hiding its activity behind bank accounts that were opened for &#8220;a series of fictitious entities.&#8221; One informant was paid more than $270,000 by the SPLC between 2015 and 2023 and had a major role in planning the &#8220;Unite the Right&#8221; rally in Charlottesville, according to the indictment.
The informant &#8220;made racist postings under the supervision of the SPLC and helped coordinate transportation to the event for several attendees,” the indictment states, adding that the informant attended the rally &#8220;at the direction of the SPLC.&#8221;
A 32-year-old woman was killed near the rally, and 35 others were injured when a man drove his car through a crowd of counter-protesters. The &#8220;Unite the Right&#8221; event became a main talking point for Democrats as they sought to pin blame on President Donald Trump, who had just begun his first term as president seven months before. In 2019, Joe Biden announced the launch of his campaign for president, citing the racist Charlottesville rally as a leading factor behind his decision.
The indictment also states that over the past 12 years, the SPLC has paid members of white supremacist groups, including paying one person who fundraised for a neo-Nazi group around $1 million over a 20-year period.
“They use their donor network to raise money to purportedly dismantle violent extremist groups,” FBI Director Kash Patel said on Tuesday. “However, the Southern Poverty Law Center, used the money they raised from their donor network to actually pay the leadership of these very groups.”

The ‘Unite the Right’ rally in Charlottesville

SPLC Raged At PayPal For Helping Fund Charlottesville Rally — While Bankrolling One Of Its Planners

PayPal

White Supremacy

Political activist George Clooney and his wife, Amal, were major donors to the ultra-left nonprofit advocacy group, Southern Poverty Law Center, which was just indicted on suspicion of funding the same white nationalists it claimed to be fighting against. 
Clooney has not made a public statement in the wake of the bombshell allegations against SPLC. 
In an indictment <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/lefty-anti-hate-group-paid-white-supremacist-to-plan-infamous-charlottesville-rally-indictment">made public</a> on Tuesday, the SPLC stands accused of secretly using donated funds to pay leaders within racist groups. One of the SPLC’s informants was a member of the leadership team of a white supremacist group that planned the rally in Charlottesville, according to the Justice Department.
The informant was paid more than $270,000 by the SPLC between 2015 and 2023 and was part of a group chat created for those who were planning the “Unite the Right” rally in 2017 — which included neo-Nazis and Klansmen. 
That rally in Charlottesville has long been used as proof that white supremacy is still rampant in the United States — and was even cited by former President Joe Biden as the reason he felt compelled to run for president in 2020 — but the indictment spurs questions about how much of the &#8220;threat&#8221; was actually bought and paid for by the very people claiming to fight against it.
Clooney donated a whopping $1 million through his Clooney Foundation for Justice in an effort “to combat hate groups” in the wake of the Charlottesville incident, SPLC noted at the time.
“We are proud to support the Southern Poverty Law Center in its efforts to prevent violent extremism in the United States. What happened in Charlottesville, and what is happening in communities across our country, demands our collective engagement to stand up to hate,” the Clooneys said in a statement in 2017.
“Like George and Amal Clooney, we were shocked by the size, ugliness, and ferocity of the white supremacist gathering in Charlottesville,” SPLC President Richard Cohen echoed in a <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/resources/stories/clooney-foundation-justice-gives-1-million-grant-help-southern-poverty-law-center-combat/">news release</a> at the same time. “It was a reflection of just how much Trump’s incendiary campaign and presidency has energized the radical right. We are deeply grateful to the Clooney Foundation for standing with us at this critical moment in our country’s fight against hate.”
The SPLC is charged with six counts of wire fraud, four counts of making false statements to a federally insured bank, and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering.

George Clooney Amal Clooney

George Clooney’s $1M Donation To SPLC Now Tied To Funding The Hate He Meant To Fight

Department of Justice

George Clooney

Leftism

Southern Poverty Law Center

White Supremacists

An informant who was paid by the Southern Poverty Law Center helped white supremacists plan the infamous &#8220;Unite the Right&#8221; rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, according to the Justice Department.
In an <a href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.almd.90264/gov.uscourts.almd.90264.1.0.pdf">indictment</a> made public on Tuesday, the SPLC stands accused of secretly using donors&#8217; money to pay leaders within racist groups. One of the SPLC&#8217;s informants was a member of the leadership team of a white supremacist group that planned the rally in Charlottesville, according to the Justice Department.
The informant, who was identified in the indictment as &#8220;field source 37&#8221; or &#8220;F-37,&#8221; was paid more than $270,000 by the SPLC between 2015 and 2023. The informant was part of a group chat created for those who were planning the &#8220;Unite the Right&#8221; rally, and the informant attended the rally &#8220;at the direction of the SPLC,&#8221; according to the department.
&#8220;F-37 made racist postings under the supervision of the SPLC and helped coordinate transportation to the event for several attendees,&#8221; the indictment states.
The 2017 &#8220;Unite the Right&#8221; rally included a mix of alt-Right groups, including neo-Nazis and Klansmen. The rally turned deadly when a man drove his car through a crowd of counter protesters, killing a 32-year-old woman and injuring 35 others. The rally and violence that ensued became a main talking point for Democrats who attempted to pin blame on President Donald Trump and Republicans.
Joe Biden pointed to the Charlottesville rally as the main reason for his decision to jump into the 2020 presidential election, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/11/27/1214460025/biden-uses-charlottesville-to-talk-about-political-violence-but-he-hasnt-been-th">saying</a> in his campaign announcement video, &#8220;In that moment, I knew the threat to this nation was unlike any I had ever seen in my lifetime.&#8221;
The indictment announced by the Justice Department this week provides multiple examples of how SPLC informants affiliated with extremist groups were paid more than $3 million between 2014 and 2023. The SPLC is also accused of hiding its activity behind bank accounts that were opened for &#8220;a series of fictitious entities&#8221; and making false statements about the bank accounts to keep the operation going.
One SPLC informant, identified as F-9, helped fundraise for the neo-Nazi group National Alliance. F-9 raked in more than $1 million from the SPLC over a 20-year period, according to the indictment.
Another informant, F-30, was secretly paid around $70,000 by the SPLC during a time period when the informant was also on the SPLC&#8217;s webpage that identifies groups and individuals that the SPLC labels as &#8220;extremist.&#8221; F-30 led the National Socialist Party of America and had previously led a faction of the white supremacist group Aryan Nation. The informant paid by the SPLC was also a former Klan member.
&#8220;In addition to directly paying leaders and others associated with the same violent extremist groups that the SPLC sought donations ostensibly to &#8216;dismantle,&#8217; the SPLC also used Fs to indirectly funnel money to other violent extremist group leaders,&#8221; the indictment states.
The SPLC is charged with six counts of wire fraud, four counts of making false statements to a federally insured bank, and one count of conspiracy to commit concealment money laundering.
Many people on the Right have criticized the SPLC for lumping together white supremacists and neo-Nazis with mainstream conservatives. The SPLC was also used as a resource by the FBI to identify extremists before FBI Director Kash Patel cut the bureau&#8217;s ties with the leftist organization last year.

Lefty ‘Anti-Hate’ Group Paid White Supremacist To Plan Infamous Charlottesville Rally: Indictment

<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/big-tech" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Tech billionaire</a> and lifelong Democrat Mark Pincus said during an interview this week that seeing how the mainstream media would lie or hide the truth from the public led to a &#8220;red pill moment.&#8221;
Pincus made the remarks during an episode of &#8220;The All-In Podcast&#8221; this week while discussing how he would read blogs that would reveal information faster than mainstream media and would often contradict what was being reported.
&#8220;I started feeling more uncomfortable and queasy with what was going on with mainstream media,&#8221; he said after coming across multiple examples of mainstream publications hiding information from the public.
&#8220;Then, in May 2024, I read an article that talked about Trump&#8217;s speech in Charlottesville, where he said there are good people on both sides, and the article said it was completely propaganda and didn&#8217;t actually reflect what he said,&#8221; Pincus said. &#8220;That he denounced the Nazis a bunch of times in his speech, so then I went and watched that video, and that was my red pill moment.&#8221;
&#8220;I think it was for a lot of people because it wasn&#8217;t just the media or politicians spinning it,&#8221; he continued. &#8220;That speech was one of the pillars of why you were supposed to hate Trump. Then you see Biden say that&#8217;s why he had to run a second time, and Obama says it, and Biden brings it up again at the DNC.&#8221;
<a href="https://get.dailywire.com/subscribe/plus/?_gl=1*1lail3r*_gcl_aw*R0NMLjE3MzIyMDEyNDkuQ2owS0NRaUEwZnU1QmhEUUFSSXNBTVhVQk9JSkM0VnNsMFVreURxYXUxVWVEVWdOdjZkNzR2Y1pEeEZQeHVBcGl2R3BLaTdBMjVzT1p5TWFBdG1nRUFMd193Y0I.*_gcl_au*NDUxNDQ0NzYwLjE3MzY3ODI2NDY.*_ga*MTc2NzM0NDQ2NS4xNzI4OTA5Nzkx*_ga_CZKR9ZYKJP*MTczNjk1NzYwMy4zNDAuMS4xNzM2OTU3NzE2LjYwLjAuMA.." target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://get.dailywire.com/subscribe/plus/?_gl%3D1*1lail3r*_gcl_aw*R0NMLjE3MzIyMDEyNDkuQ2owS0NRaUEwZnU1QmhEUUFSSXNBTVhVQk9JSkM0VnNsMFVreURxYXUxVWVEVWdOdjZkNzR2Y1pEeEZQeHVBcGl2R3BLaTdBMjVzT1p5TWFBdG1nRUFMd193Y0I.*_gcl_au*NDUxNDQ0NzYwLjE3MzY3ODI2NDY.*_ga*MTc2NzM0NDQ2NS4xNzI4OTA5Nzkx*_ga_CZKR9ZYKJP*MTczNjk1NzYwMy4zNDAuMS4xNzM2OTU3NzE2LjYwLjAuMA..&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1737044212122000&amp;usg=AOvVaw3mp2MZNwEXBk00lKmCtOss">CELEBRATE #47 WITH 47% OFF DAILYWIRE+ MEMBERSHIPS + A FREE $20 GIFT</a>
&#8220;They clearly know they are misrepresenting things, so for me, that was beyond uncomfortable,&#8221; he added. &#8220;Now, I have to go back to first principles and look at the primary data, listen to only original speeches by people, and I just realized I couldn&#8217;t trust the mainstream media.&#8221;
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-media-max-width="560">
NEW: Tech billionaire and lifelong Democrat Mark Pincus reveals his &#8220;Red Pill&#8221; moment, sparked by Mike Solana&#8217;s Pirate Wires and the &#8220;very fine people&#8221; hoax, culminating in him voting for Donald Trump.
&#8220;I started reading <a href="https://twitter.com/PirateWires?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@PirateWires</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/micsolana?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@micsolana</a>, and I thought he was a little… <a href="https://t.co/VpwgcvyCVJ">pic.twitter.com/VpwgcvyCVJ</a>
— KanekoaTheGreat (@KanekoaTheGreat) <a href="https://twitter.com/KanekoaTheGreat/status/1880677951920013332?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 18, 2025</a></blockquote>

Allen & Co. Media And Technology Conference

Tech Billionaire And Lifelong Democrat Mark Pincus Reveals His ‘Red Pill Moment’

Big Tech

Donald Trump

Media

Politics

President Joe Biden repeated the debunked lie on Monday night at the DNC that Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said there were &#8220;very fine people on both sides&#8221; of an extremist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017.
&#8220;I ran for president in 2020 because of what I saw in Charlottesville in August of 2017,&#8221; Biden said. &#8220;Extremists coming out of the woods carrying torches, their veins bulging from their necks, carrying Nazi swastikas and chanting the same exact antisemitic bile that was heard in Germany in the early &#8217;30s.&#8221;
&#8220;When the president was asked what he thought had happened, Donald Trump said, and I quote, &#8216;There are very fine people on both sides.&#8217; My God, that&#8217;s what he said. That is what he said and what he meant,&#8221; Biden continued. &#8220;That&#8217;s when I realized … I could not stay on the sidelines. So I ran.&#8221;
<a href="https://www.amiracist.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.amiracist.com/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1724211156439000&amp;usg=AOvVaw2-L2DitSaIUj5wz8v0bgxx">Tickets for “Am I Racist?” are on sale NOW! Buy here for a theater near you.</a>
Biden has made this debunked claim before when he said that Trump referred to neo-Nazis and white supremacists at the protest as &#8220;very fine people.&#8221;
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-media-max-width="560">
&#8220;Donald Trump said&#8230;&#8217;There are very fine people on both sides.&#8217; That is what he said and what he meant.&#8221;
Fact check: not true. <a href="https://t.co/O8Kr561cqg">pic.twitter.com/O8Kr561cqg</a>
— Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDailyWire/status/1825746901586661555?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 20, 2024</a></blockquote>
However, that is not what the former president said at the press conference where he made the remarks on August 15, 2017, following the violence that broke out at the protest.
&#8220;And you had people, and I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists, because they should be condemned totally,” Trump said. “But you had many people in that group other than neo-Nazis and white nationalists, okay? And the press has treated them absolutely unfairly.”
<a href="http://www.amiracist.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.amiracist.com/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1724211156439000&amp;usg=AOvVaw2xQ8bdTcpfdrPBAzczIuck">WATCH THE TRAILER FOR ‘AM I RACIST?’ — A MATT WALSH COMEDY ON DEI</a>
&#8220;Now, in the other group also, you had some fine people, but you also had troublemakers, and you see them come with the black outfits and with the helmets and with the baseball bats,&#8221; he continued. &#8220;You had a lot of bad people in the other group too.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-media-max-width="560">
Biden just repeated the &#8220;very fine people&#8221; smear against Trump
Trump condemned the racists at the Charlottesville protest: &#8220;I&#8217;m not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists, because they should be condemned totally&#8221;<a href="https://t.co/AejOrmJVMO">pic.twitter.com/AejOrmJVMO</a>
— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) <a href="https://twitter.com/RealSaavedra/status/1825739375071666529?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 20, 2024</a></blockquote>

Day One Of The 2024 Democratic National Convention

Biden Repeats Debunked ‘Very Fine People On Both Sides’ Lie At DNC

Democratic National Convention

Elections

Executive

Joe Biden

Virginia Memorial Featuring General Robert E. Lee at Gettysburg

Why The Destruction Of Statues Is A Proxy In The Overall War On American History

American General

American History

Civil War

Readers Pass

Robert E. Lee

Dove is facing backlash, including from X owner Elon Musk, after it was revealed that the company was <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12516377/zyahna-bryant-dove-morgan-bettinger-charlottesville.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">partnering</a> in a “fat liberation” campaign with a Black Lives Matter Activist accused of wrecking a white female student’s life with uncorroborated accusations.
Zyahna Bryant, who celebrated on Instagram last week she was a Dove ambassador and spoke of “fat liberation,” accused fellow University of Virginia student Morgan Bettinger — a first-generation college student and the daughter of a police officer who had died six years before — of  saying that George Floyd protesters would make “good speed bumps” at a 2020 Charlottesville rally. Bryant later admitted she might not have heard the remarks at all, according to a report.
Responding to a tweet stating, “Zyahna Bryant ruined a white girl’s life over a non-existent remark. Dove just did a brand partnership with her to support ‘fat liberation,” Musk tweeted bluntly, “Messed up.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Messed up
&mdash; Elon Musk (@elonmusk) <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1702321986423374323?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 14, 2023</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Other social media users chimed in, as The Daily Mail <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12521083/dove-boycott-zyahna-bryant-BLM-morgan-bettinger.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported.</a> Sample comments included these:
<blockquote>
“After hearing that Dove Beauty chose Zyahna Bryant — who ruined Morgan Bettinger&#8217;s life — for their ‘fat acceptance ambassador,’ THIS lifelong large lady &amp; now former Dove customer tossed out the last three bars of Dove product she will EVER buy. I have written to Unilever too.”
“@Dove. Do you want to get  @budlight bud lighted? Because, this is how you get bud lighted.”
“Shame on Dove, never bought the product anyway. There goes their reputation!”
“Guess I&#8217;ve bought my last bar of Dove soap.” 
“I&#8217;ve stopped buying their products. Never again!”
“I&#8217;ll have to toss my Dove products and never buy them again!”
</blockquote>
Bettinger was accused by Bryant and others of making threatening remarks about George Floyd protesters in Charlottesville in 2020.
“The woman in this truck approached protesters in #Charlottesville, and told us that we would make ‘good speedbumps,’” Bryant, then 19, wrote of Bettinger. “She then called the police and started crying saying we were attacking her.” Bryant followed with a series of videos, but they did not show the alleged remarks, as <a href="https://reason.com/2023/04/24/the-most-hated-person-on-campus/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Reason</a> noted in a detailed article on the incident.
The group that organized the protest, Charlottesville Beyond Policing, followed by writing on <a href="https://medium.com/@defundcvillepolice/defund-cpds-statement-call-to-action-regarding-threats-made-at-friday-s-black-women-matter-rally-2e642062da4d" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Medium</a>:
<blockquote>
… this rally and march was disturbed by a UVA student, Morgan Bettinger. Morgan drove around the public works truck blocking the street that demonstrators were convened on, and felt compelled to say, not just once, but twice, that protesters would “make good speed bumps.” The second time she repeated it loudly to a Black protester and added “good f***ing speed bumps.”
</blockquote>
The story was amplified by local media with Bryant starting a campaign demanding Bettinger’s expulsion.
An inquiry by professional investigators at the university’s Office for Equal Opportunity and Civil Rights (EOCR) found that three of Bryant’s four allegations that she said happened before a large crowd could not be corroborated by other witnesses, Reason reported, and the fourth, that Bettinger yelled protesters would make “good speed bumps,” had one witness claiming it happened, but that witness contradicted Bryant and herself when interviewed. Additionally, Bryant later altered her story on that claim, acknowledging she wasn’t certain she heard Bettinger make that statement at all, according to a report from the EOCR.

Elon Musk

Elon Musk, Others Blast Dove For Hiring BLM Activist Who Wrecked White Student With Uncorroborated Accusations

Black Lives Matter

Dove

Fat Liberation

University of Virginia

Dove is now <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12516377/zyahna-bryant-dove-morgan-bettinger-charlottesville.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">partnering</a> in a “fat liberation” campaign with a Black Lives Matter Activist accused of wrecking a white female student’s life by accusing her of making threatening remarks — later admitting she may not have heard the remarks at all, according to a new report.
Zyahna Bryant, who celebrated on Instagram last week she was a Dove ambassador and spoke of “fat liberation,” accused fellow University of Virginia student Morgan Bettinger — a first-generation college student and the daughter of a police officer who had died six years before — of  saying that George Floyd protesters would make “good speed bumps” at a 2020 Charlottesville rally.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Zyahna Bryant is hired by Dove to promote &#39;FAT liberation&#39; despite ruining white student&#39;s live over &#39;misheard&#39; remark at BLM protest <a href="https://t.co/BvpVLWaiev">https://t.co/BvpVLWaiev</a> <a href="https://t.co/GEb2n9pNbL">pic.twitter.com/GEb2n9pNbL</a>
&mdash; Daily Mail US (@DailyMail) <a href="https://twitter.com/DailyMail/status/1702176066440221110?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 14, 2023</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
“The woman in this truck approached protesters in #Charlottesville, and told us that we would make ‘good speedbumps,’” Bryant, then 19, wrote. “She then called the police and started crying saying we were attacking her.” Bryant followed with a series of videos, but they did not show the alleged remarks, as <a href="https://reason.com/2023/04/24/the-most-hated-person-on-campus/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Reason</a> noted in a detailed article on the incident.
The group that organized the protest, Charlottesville Beyond Policing, followed by writing on <a href="https://medium.com/@defundcvillepolice/defund-cpds-statement-call-to-action-regarding-threats-made-at-friday-s-black-women-matter-rally-2e642062da4d" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Medium</a>:
<blockquote>
&#8230; this rally and march was disturbed by a UVA student, Morgan Bettinger. Morgan drove around the public works truck blocking the street that demonstrators were convened on, and felt compelled to say, not just once, but twice, that protesters would “make good speed bumps.” The second time she repeated it loudly to a Black protester and added “good f***ing speed bumps.”
</blockquote>
The story was amplified by local media; Bryant started a campaign demanding Bettinger&#8217;s expulsion.
Bettinger said she had been driving home from work when she saw a dump truck blocking the road. She added that the truck didn’t appear to be completely blocking the intersection, so she passed it, only later realizing the road was blocked ahead. She added that she exited her car and the truck driver began a conversation with her, during which she stated something like, “It&#8217;s a good thing that you are here, because otherwise these people would have been speed bumps.” She said what she said had intended to thank the truck driver for protecting the protesters, some of whom were sitting in the street.
An inquiry by professional investigators at the university&#8217;s Office for Equal Opportunity and Civil Rights (EOCR) found that three of Bryant&#8217;s four allegations that she said happened before a large crowd could not be corroborated by other witnesses, Reason reported, and the fourth, that Bettinger yelled protesters would make “good speed bumps,” had one witness claiming it happened, but that witness contradicted Bryant and herself when interviewed. Additionally, Bryant later altered her story on that claim, acknowledging she wasn’t certain she heard Bettinger make that statement at all, according to a report from the EOCR.
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“While Bettinger eventually graduated from the university, she did so with a permanent mark on her record and a destroyed reputation,” Reason reported. “But despite two separate investigations, there&#8217;s no evidence beyond Bryant&#8217;s allegations that Bettinger said protestors would make ‘good f***ing speed bumps’ or that she threatened the protesters at all.”
Bryant wrote on Instagram, “#DovePartner Fat liberation is something we should all be talking about! That&#8217;s why I am partnering with Dove, to support the work of @naafaofficial, @flareforjustice in the Campaign for Size Freedom. Tell us what Fat Liberation means to you using the hashtag #sizefreedom and tagging @dove to share your story.”

Anti-Racism Rally Held Charlottesville, Virginia

Dove Partners With BLM Activist In ‘Fat Liberation’ Campaign. Activist Wrecked White Student With Uncorroborated Accusations.

In the summer of 2020, amidst the COVID lockdowns and Black Lives Matter protests, a white student at the University of Virginia was accused of threatening black protesters and was punished.
But the account given by the black protester who accused the student wasn’t backed up by evidence or witnesses, according to <a href="https://reason.com/2023/04/24/the-most-hated-person-on-campus/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">a report</a> from Reason magazine. In fact, the university’s student judicial system apparently accepted the white girl’s version of events, yet punished her anyway.
It all began on the evening of July 17, 2020. Then-19-year-old Zyahna Bryant, one of the Black Women Matter protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia, that evening, claimed on social media that a white woman in a vehicle approached protesters and told them they would make “good speed bumps.”
&#8220;She then called the police and started crying saying we were attacking her,&#8221; Bryant claimed, according to Reason.
To support her claims, Bryant posted several videos showing an SUV reversing down a street as she and other protesters followed it. Bryant can be heard saying “It’s a Karen, it’s a Karen.” The videos don’t show the vehicle’s driver saying anything about speed bumps, Reason reported.
In a Medium post shortly after the incident, the group behind the protest, Charlottesville Beyond Policing, claimed that the woman &#8220;drove around the public works truck blocking the street that demonstrators were convened on, and felt compelled to say, not just once, but twice, that protesters would &#8216;make good speed bumps.'&#8221;
&#8220;The second time she repeated it loudly to a Black protester and added &#8216;good f***ing speed bumps,'&#8221; the group claimed, according to Reason.
One local news outlet appeared to believe the claim, commenting, &#8220;The threat is especially chilling and violent given that Heather Heyer was murdered by a driver just a few blocks from where the protest took place.&#8221;
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A student-run website also said it could “confirm” that the white woman “refused to leave the scene even though protesters were asking her to, and at no point were protesters blocking her car.&#8221;
Because the vehicle’s license plate was featured in Bryant’s videos, people quickly identified the driver as Morgan Bettinger, a senior at UVA.
Bryant started a campaign to get mass complaints sent to UVA administrators in an effort to get Bettinger expelled, according to Reason. Bryant also filed her own complaint with the University Judiciary Committee (UJC), a student-run disciplinary system that took up the case. The university also said it would investigate the matter.
Bettinger’s version of events is much different than Bryant’s. Bettinger told Reason that she was returning home from work when she saw a dump truck partially blocking the road ahead. She kept driving toward it before realizing that the road was completely blocked. She claimed she had no room to turn around, so she parked her car and stepped out to see why the road was blocked.
She said that when she did so, the driver of the dump truck started a conversation with her. It was brief and casual, Bettinger claimed, and at some point, she said she told the driver something like, “It’s a good thing that you are here, because otherwise these people would have been speed bumps,&#8221; Reason reported.
Bettinger told the outlet that, after speaking to the truck driver, she walked around the truck to see the protest, took a photo, and went back to her car. She said some protesters then started recording and following her, so she jumped back in her car and called her mom. She claimed the crowd became aggressive and some started shouting at her, with one pounding on her windows.
&#8220;With the one woman hitting on my car and other people shouting and starting to threaten me, I didn&#8217;t know what was going to happen,&#8221; Bettinger told Reason.
At her trial before the UJC, Bettinger faced Bryant for the first time. After each woman told her story, the UJC found Bettinger guilty, even though it seemed to accept that her version of events was the truth. Reason Magazine reported it could not find any rationale behind the panel’s decision, except for a paragraph that was read to Bettinger after she was found guilty.
&#8220;We the judges of this trial panel find that your actions on July 17th were shameful and put members of the community at risk,&#8221; the jury read, according to Reason. &#8220;You yourself acknowledged saying &#8216;it&#8217;s a good thing you are here because, otherwise, these people would have been speed bumps.&#8217; Given the tragic events of August 12 and the context in which you uttered these words, you disregarded Charlottesville&#8217;s violent history. A history you should have been cognizant of as a UVA student and resident of Charlottesville. During these proceedings you have shown no understanding of the risk this statement posed.&#8221;
The panel referenced the August 12, 2017, Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville, which involved white supremacists and the death of a white counter-protester, Heather Heyer.
Bettinger was sentenced on September 28, 2020, to 50 hours of community service at a social justice organization, three meetings with a professor to teach her about “police community relations,” an apology letter to Bryant, and she was expelled in abeyance, meaning she would be expelled if she committed a second offense similar to this one.
Bettinger graduated but had a mark on her record preventing her from moving on with her life, as well as the notoriety that came from the assault on her reputation.
A year later, UVA’s Office for Equal Opportunity and Civil Rights (EOCR) completed its own investigation based on a separate complaint filed by Bryant, which claimed Bettinger harassed her based on her race.
The EOCR investigation, completed in June 2021, found that Bettinger didn’t legally harass Bryant and provided more detail on Bryant&#8217;s original complaint, according to Reason.
Reason obtained a copy of the EOCR report, which it said showed that individuals interviewed by the office claimed Bettinger made the “speed bumps” remark five times, but only one had actual evidence supporting it: The same one Bettinger admitted to making and said wasn&#8217;t a threat.
This was also the only allegation made by other witnesses and not by Bryant.
Three of Bryant’s four allegations weren’t corroborated by other witnesses, even though they occurred in front of a large crowd, according to Reason&#8217;s review of the report. In two of her allegations, Bryant changed her story, Reason reported. The fourth allegation – that Bettinger allegedly made a “speed bump” threat over the top of her car – had a witness to back up Bryant’s claim, but that witness contradicted themselves and Bryant when interviewed. Bryant also later told investigators she wasn’t sure if she heard Bettinger make this particular threat, according to Reason.
Video evidence also supported the idea that Bryant never heard Bettinger say anything about “speed bumps.” Instead, another protester makes the claim while Bryant is filming, to which Bryant responded with surprise, the EOCR report said.
&#8220;Based on Bryant&#8217;s immediate and surprised tone following the second third party&#8217;s reply, EOCR finds it more likely than not that it was at that moment Bryant first learned that [Bettinger] made a statement about protestors making speed bumps,&#8221; the report said according to Reason.
Even though Bettinger&#8217;s outside lawyer argued that the EOCR report exonerated Bettinger, UVA’s president refused to overturn her sanction, saying it had been “properly adjudicated,” Reason reported.
Since the ordeal, Bryant has continued to participate as a social justice activist, while Bettinger reportedly lives in a state of limbo, unable to move forward.
&#8220;This whole situation has had a huge impact on my life,&#8221; Bettinger told Reason. &#8220;The university has never had to answer for what their actions have done.&#8221;

Shot of a protester holding a megaphone during a rally

A Black Woman Accused A White Woman Of Threatening Protesters. That’s Not What Happened, Report Says.

A Black Woman Accused A White Woman Of Threatening Protesters. That's Not What Happened, Report Says.

false accusations

Protest

U.S.

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