Ash Parrish, a video game reporter at The Verge and a defender of Sweet Baby Inc., appeared to endorse the assassination attempt against President Donald Trump.
Ash Parrish via NASEF YouTube
An assassin attempted to take the life of President Trump while he was at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania outside of Pittsburgh. The assassin’s bullet failed to kill President Trump, but pierced his ear. While he failed to assassinate President Trump, he did murder Corey Comperatore, who used his body to shield his wife and daughter who were at the rally with him.
The assassin also wounded David Dutch and James Copenhaver according to Pennsylvania State Police.
This video makes me furious. UNHUMANS did this!! pic.twitter.com/Io799XbNdn
— Tanya Tay Posobiec ☦️ (@realTanyaTay) July 13, 2024
Parrish’s apparent endorsement of the assassination attempt came in the wake of Jack Black canceling his Tenacious D tour and claiming he was blindsided by his band member Kyle Gass wishing that a second assassin would not “miss Trump next time.”
At a concert event for their Spicy Meatball Tour in Sydney, Australia, Black’s band Tenacious D celebrated the birthday of member Kyle Gass with Black singing “Happy Birthday” and a birthday cake being delivered by a man in a robot costume.
Black then informs Gass to make a wish. Gass then states, “Don’t miss Trump next time.” Much of the crowd begins laughing and chuckling. The video concludes with Black saying, “Thank you.”
Tenacious D “Don’t miss miss Trump next time”
These people are sick and want you dead pic.twitter.com/3qaVioquGu
— 🌴 Josh Lekach 🌴 (@JoshLekach) July 15, 2024
Black issued a statement on Instagram this morning announcing the end of Tenacious D’s tour and claiming he was blindsided by Gass’ actions. He wrote, “I was blindsided by what was said at the show on Sunday. I would never condone hate speech or encourage political violence in any form.”
He added, “After much reflection, I no longer feel it is appropriate to continue the Tenacious D tour, and all future creative plans are on hold. I am grateful to the fans for their support and understanding.”
Jack Black on Instagram
READ: Kotaku Senior Editor Alyssa Mercante Mocks Attempted Assassination Of President Donald Trump
Parrish reacted to Black’s statement initially writing, “Jack! Nooooo.”
Ash Parrish on X
In another post she wrote, “That Nintendo/DreamWorks check got him acting foolish. Hate to see it.”
Ash Parrish on X
She then appeared to endorse the assassination attempt. X user Korlis wrote, “From context I’m assuming KG said what we all know should have happened should have happened?”
Parrish replied, “something like that.”
Ash Parrish on X
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She would follow that up by admitting she was in favor of political violence, “Listen. I’m not one of those people who’s gonna to say ‘violence has no place in politics’. Violence in politics is lichrully [sic] baked into the foundation of this country. It is inextricable. Nothing good we have earned as a country came peacefully. Periodt.”
Ash Parrish on X
In another post she added, “What has happened isn’t some shocking anomaly, it is the logical conclusion of american life. Violence walks with us in our daily lives explicit and subtle in capitalism, healthcare, child rearing, and the simple ways we mistreat our fellow human beings. Lets start there maybe.”
Ash Parrish on X
In another post she claims the United States of America has taken more from her than it could ever give, “oooh hard disagree bby, what this country has taken and continues to take from me and mine will never *EVER* compare to what it has allegedly given me. My country ain’t special. I am tho.”
She then declared, “America has been specifically and meticulously constructed to BLOCK progress for all but cis het white men. Everything I am and have done has been done *IN SPITE OF* this country not because of it.”
Ash Parrish on X
Unfortunately, her comments are also not surprising given she previously admitted to lying in order to push a woke narrative when it came to defending Sweet Baby Inc. Parrish admitted to intentionally removing any coverage of Sweet Baby Inc.’s harassment campaign against Brazilian gamer KabrutusRambo as well as comments made by Sweet Baby Inc. CEO Kim Belair regarding her aims for the video game industry. She did this in order to paint Sweet Baby Inc. in a good light.
Parrish said, “As far as the omission of this ‘instigating incident’ from reporting, ok lets look at this even holistically taking everything into account. Chris Kindred finds this lists. Asks folks to report the list and its maker. Reports are filed, and steam acts only as far as to delete/lock the forum. The list still exists. Kabrutus’ account still exists. This is where this story should end and all in all, that’s not really report worthy because it’s an interpersonal conflict that ends in a stalemate. Happens all the time.”
She continued, “But as we both know, the story doesn’t end there. It continues and what resulted of that interpersonal conflict was this *outsized* outpouring of the grossest kinds of bigotry that blew up so big… well you see.”
“This is the story, I get that in respect of thoroughness and completeness, not sharing that ‘Kindred started this’ is upsetting and feels like a lie of omission. But what does including it do? How does including that detail materially change the circumstances of the story? Let’s be honest and real here: not much,” Parrish said.
Screenshot from Tales of Kenzera: ZAU (2024), Surgent Studios
Parrish continued, “Does what Kindred did with his tweet warrant the response, he, his boss, his company, journalists, and sympathetic developers received? No. Not even close. Kindred said ‘hey this sucks, lets take this s***ty thing down and the guy who did it’ and the response was death threats. And so you run into this thing where including this detail makes it seem like the inciting incident is on equal footing with what happened next and it’s so not. It’s so so so not.”
Next, she provided a bizarre metaphor to defend her lies in attempt to position herself on the moral high ground, “best analogy I can think of is like a woman is walking on the street minding her business. she sees a guy looking at her with a nasty expression. She tells the guy to f*** off. And the guy rapes her. the guy was totally within his rights to look and the girl was totally in her rights to tell him to f*** off. But the guys response to being told to f*** off was so far beyond the pale of reasonable responses that the event makes the national news.”
— YourReadThisWrong (@YourReadThisWr1) March 18, 2024
READ: Sweet Baby Inc. CEO And Co-Founder Kim Belair Compares White Male Gamers To Picky Babies
She would later claim she was instructed by her editors at The Verge to lie and omit the information to frame gamers as racists and misogynists.
She wrote, “i’ll share the conversation i had with my editors about this because in preparation for my piece i struggled with this particular bit and the conversation i had really helped me understand kabrutus and his ilk have a grievance against sweet baby inc that is rooted in racism and misogyny and has no basis in the reality of how video game development works. that’s it period.”
“And when you get into the nitty gritty of who did what when, (not, obviously the whos and whats that are necessary to explaining the story) that central premise gets lost,” Parrish elaborated. “and me personally, i have to remember what my piece is ultimately about.”
A screenshot from Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn (2024), A44 Games
She continued, “and it’s not about providing a timeline of events, its bigger than that, its about explaining that the reason you’re hearing about this company called sweet baby and ‘gamergate 2.0’ getting thrown around is because there’s a group of people who decided they hate ‘woke’ video games and found a convenient scapegoat to target and a larger conspiracy to underpin it.”
“with that big picture thesis, those smaller details (even the ones considered important to the players involved!!) become largely immaterial to the story,” she justified.
Furthermore, she stated, “kindred’s tweets and his gloating however bad or ill advised they might be, is not the fulcrum on which this story is made or broken and i understand why you don’t see it that way why others have the anger that they do about it. and I’d urge you to think about it this way: this story (mine, kotaku’s, everybody else’s) really honestly isn’t even about sweet baby. it’s not about defending them or protecting them specifically. it’s bigger than that.”
— YourReadThisWrong (@YourReadThisWr1) March 18, 2024
“it’s about explaining to readers that there’s a group of people trying to fight another culture war within the video game space just like 10 years ago. and they’re using the same language and playbook targeting the same kinds of people. but fundamentally, this movement isn’t gonna have the same outcome it did last time. these culture warriors are like don quixotes and have picked a fighty they’ve already lost,” she stated.
She then noted she was going to explain why, but never does. Instead, she states, “that’s the story, that’s really the ‘only’ story here.”
— YourReadThisWrong (@YourReadThisWr1) March 18, 2024
What do you make of Parrish appearing to endorse the assassination of President Donald Trump?
NEXT: Sweet Baby Inc. CEO Kim Belair Admits She Wanted To Take Over The Video Game Industry
