By Jack Davis | The Western Journal
Nicholas
Sandmann - Getty Images
Nicholas Sandmann, the Kentucky teenager who was vilified
by the mainstream media after a January 2019 interaction at the March for Life,
announced Friday he has settled his lawsuit with NBC.
The settlement of his $275 million lawsuit was Sandmann’s
third with a major news source. He had sued The Washington Post for $250
million and CNN for $275 million. Both suits have since been
settled.
Sandmann announced the NBC settlement in a tweet, and
said the terms would not be disclosed.
“NBC-Universal created a false narrative by portraying
the ‘confrontation’ as a ‘hate crime’ committed by Nicholas,” the suit had
said, according to the U.K. Daily Mail.
The suit claimed Sandmann, who was 16 at the time, was an ‘”easy target
for NBC-Universal to advance its anti-Trump agenda because he was a
16-year-old white, Catholic student who had attended the Right to Life March
that day and was wearing a MAGA cap at the time of the incident which he had
purchased earlier in the day as a souvenir.”
NBC “unleashed its vast corporate wealth, influence, and
power against Nicholas to falsely attack him despite the fact that at the time,
he was a 16-year-old high school student,” the lawsuit stated.
Sandmann has publicly argued there is a strong parallel
between what the media did to him and what liberal news outlets did to Kyle
Rittenhouse, who was acquitted of all charges against him last month
stemming from an incident during the 2020 Kenosha riots when Rittenhouse, in
self-defense, killed two men and wounded a third.
“Kyle was almost immediately labeled a ‘white
supremacist’ and a ‘domestic terrorist.’ To many, my red MAGA hat clearly meant
that I was a racist,” Sandmann wrote in a commentary piece published by
the Daily Mail before the Rittenhouse trial concluded.
Sandmann wrote that the damage false media accounts did
to them both goes beyond words.
“From my own experience, the death threats, feeling of no
future ahead, and that millions of people hate you, is enough to alter you in
many concrete ways and permanently. Make no mistake: even the strongest of
people cannot resist the mental impact when the media war machine targets you,”
he said.
On the question of whether Rittenhouse should hold the
media accountable as he did, Sandmann wrote, “give it a shot and hold the media
accountable.” Any Rittenhouse legal action would likely include issues similar
to those that arose in the Sandmann case.
“One of the saddening parts of this media onslaught is
that it has taken young people like Kyle and myself to expose how corrupt the
media really is,” he wrote, calling the media’s coverage of Rittenhouse during
his trial “the media’s public execution of him.”
“At this time I would like to use my platform to let Kyle
know that I am here for you and if you ever would like to reach out to me, I am
about the only person our age to have an idea of how the media is treating you.
The way the media has treated you is terrible, and you don’t have to face it
alone,” he wrote.
In an interview this month, Rittenhouse suggested
he might sue media outlets, but noted it was not his top priority.
____________________
IN OTHER NEWS
'The
Squad' Rages as Manchin All But Kills Build Back Better
By Jack Davis | The Western Journal
Progressive Democrats slammed Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin
of West Virginia on Sunday after Manchin all but killed hopes for the
collection of progressive sugarplums known as Build Back Better.
During an appearance on “Fox News Sunday,” Manchin said
that his concerns for inflation, the federal debt, and the need to deal with
COVID-19 were all factors in his rejection of the proposal.
But the bottom line, apparently, was “no.”
Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, one of the gaggle of House progressives doing battle under the clubhouse name of “the squad,” tweeted her outrage.
“Let’s be clear: Manchin’s excuse is bulls**t. The people
of West Virginia would directly benefit from childcare, pre-Medicare expansion,
and long term care, just like Minnesotans. This is exactly what we warned would
happen if we separated Build Back Better from infrastructure,” she wrote.
Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan also said
Democrats should have linked the infrastructure package that passed Congress
with the trillions progressives demanded for social programs.
“It shouldn’t surprise anyone that Manchin goes on Fox to
kill BBB – he’s been promising to do it for months, and some folks didn’t want
to believe him. We gave up our leverage the moment BIF passed and he got the
fossil fuel subsidies he wanted,” she tweeted, referring to the Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework.
On Friday, Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said
Manchin was only one piece of the problem.
But to Democratic Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, Manchin is a one-man
barrier to achieving just about everything progressives want.
“He has continued
to move the goalposts, he has never negotiated in good faith. And he is
obstructing the President’s agenda. Eighty-five percent of which is still left
on the table. And in obstructing the president’s agenda, he is obstructing the
people’s agenda,” she told CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday, according
to The Hill.
“We cannot allow one lone senator from West Virginia to
obstruct the president’s agenda, to obstruct the people’s agenda,” she said,
adding that “all I want for Christmas is a senator that has compassion for the
American people and not contempt.”
“This is about Joe Manchin obstructing the president’s
agenda, obstructing the people’s agenda, you know, torpedoing our opportunity
to advance unprecedented advancements to address the hurt that this
pandemic-induced recession has caused and to get this pandemic under control,”
Pressley said, according to The Hill.
On Sunday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki released a rebuke of Manchin on the White House website, saying Manchin’s comments ”are at odds
with his discussions this week with the President, with White House staff, and
with his own public utterances.”
Psaki claimed that on Tuesday, “Senator Manchin came to
the White House and submitted—to the President, in person, directly—a written
outline for a Build Back Better bill that was the same size and scope as the
President’s framework, and covered many of the same priorities.”
“While that framework was missing key priorities, we
believed it could lead to a compromise acceptable to all. Senator Manchin
promised to continue conversations in the days ahead, and to work with us to
reach that common ground,” she said.
“If his comments on FOX and written statement indicate an
end to that effort, they represent a sudden and inexplicable reversal in his
position, and a breach of his commitments to the President and the Senator’s
colleagues in the House and Senate,” she said.
https://www.westernjournal.com/squad-rages-manchin-kills-build-back-better/
