Thread by @StrassburgRoger

@tief_24 Fine.

But would it even matter if it was proven that there's nothing to it? Because it never has in the past with right-wing smears.

@tief_24 The birthers continued on after Obama presented his birth certificate, claiming it was fake or saying it wasn't good enough because it was the "short form", as if that made it any less of an official certification of what was on the record.

@tief_24 H The right has claimed and continues to claim that Obama is secretly a Muslim, that he sympathizes with or supports Muslim terrorists.

Of course he also hates America, and wanted to turn America into Venezuela, as all Democrats do.

@tief_24 Fox News played a clip showing Obama saying, "If you own a business, you didn't build that", completely misrepresenting what he actually said in such a way as to make it seem as though he was trying to take credit away from people who built a business.

@tief_24 When they were called on it, they produced another clip that also left out the essential context: mediamatters.org/research/2012/…

@tief_24 The right-wing narrative is also that Obama tanked the economy and Trump revived it. The fact is that when Obama took office, we were in the middle of the worst recession since the Great Depression, with the GDP plummeting and unemployment skyrocketing.

@tief_24 During the second year of his presidency the situation reversed, and the GDP grew and unemployment sank. This trend has continued into the Trump administration, but it didn't start there.

This is stuff you can actually look up.

@tief_24 There were ten different investigations of Hillary's handling of Benghazi, including by several Republican committees, all of which exonerated her of any wrongdoing, but the right keeps claiming wrongdoing on her part.

@tief_24 Hillary was accused of violating the policies of the department she herself led by using a private email server for official business. She was investigated for nearly two years by the FBI, without finding that she violated any law. The right still screams "lock her up!"

@tief_24 Hillary has been accused of selling uranium to Russia, a gross misrepresentation of facts that's been debunked over and over, including in Fox News:

But the right keeps spreading it around as if it were fact.

@tief_24 It goes on and on. So much of the outrage on the right about things that are based on nothing more than unsubstantiated rumors or just aren't true.

@tief_24 Reasonable people can have differences of opinion, but it's not possible to have a reasonable discussion without at least being able to agree on a common set of facts.

Everyone's entitled to their own opinion, but nobody's entitled to their own facts.

@tief_24 But it's not even just about facts.

@tief_24 The right condemned Bill Clinton for cheating on his wife, saying that if he was unfaithful to his wife, how can we be sure he'll be faithful to our country. We were told that character matters.

@tief_24 When Trump came around, the same people who claimed Clinton was unfit to be president defend Trump's obvious immorality as "nobody's business but his (and possibly his wife's)".

@tief_24 The hypocrisy is simply breathtaking.

@tief_24 So we now have the situation where there's documented evidence that the President of the United States welcomed and encouraged interference in a presidential election by a foreign power, and illegally obstructed justice to cover it up.

@tief_24 No outrage on the right, except that anyone actually had the audacity to investigate "their" president.

@tief_24 But plenty of outrage about an unsubstantiated claim on social media about an immigrant refugee congresswoman marrying someone they claim was her brother in order for him to fraudulently get a green card

@tief_24 But this makes no sense, since the law already provides for family members who were given refugee status to sponsor other family members, and in spite of the fact that her alleged brother didn't even stay I the country.

@tief_24 * in *

@tief_24 H So sure, go ahead and launch an investigation. I'm sure the DHS will do so if they find probable cause.

But how about in the meantime not spreading unsubstantiated rumors as fact.

@tief_24 It seems that so many people who invoke God to justify their politics have forgotten about the eighth commandment.

@tief_24 I didn't thread this quite right, so a few tweets are hidden under multiple responses.

Sigh.

@tief_24 @threadreaderapp please unroll