It's the first day of the new year, 2024. The Civil War ended like 160 years ago. But NBC is out here trying to re-stoke dead flames.

Check out this headline from the worst of the worst fake news outrage artists:

Before you even click through to the story you know how ridiculous this is.

The basic argument is that racists from the South spread west and instituted racist policies in new states as they joined the Union. The evidence for this, they say, is the proliferation of "systemic racism" that is supposedly still around today.

The Tulane researcher is even using this argument to support California's plans for racial reparations, even though California never had slavery.

As the California Reparations Task Force is set to hand over its recommendations to the state's Legislature next week, this new study crystalizes how states that did not legally allow slavery, like California, still contributed mightily to oppressing Black people.

Some detractors of reparations have argued that California was not a slave state and therefore, it should not offer reparations. But in the later part of the 19th century it became the home of numerous former Southerners and it was populated by so many Confederate-aligned citizens that it supported John C. Breckinridge in the 1860 presidential election.

I had to look this last point up because I didn't think it was true. And guess what? It's not true.

It was a close election in California, but Cali did support Abe Lincoln with their electoral votes.

So, one of the main arguments from this article that California owes reparations to black people who were never enslaved in California, that they voted for Breckenridge, is just a lie.

Some parts of California favored Breckenridge, but Lincoln carried the state.

But let's forget that this is all a bunch of hooey.

NBC is out here trying to push for a restart to the Civil War by arguing racist white people spread everywhere, like Marvel's Hydra, with the goal of keeping black people down.

Imagine believing that nonsense!

(And follow the thought experiment to its natural conclusion: How does one get rid of all these diabolical white people who apparently spent generations scheming to make America's institutions oppressive?)

They were ratioed to death for their trouble:

New year, same old fake news.

We gotta tap the other sign:

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