The Kavanaugh hearing was a clarifying moment for countless conservatives because it revealed the depths to which the other side will sink in order to get power.
I don’t think most conservatives need a reminder, but in case you‘ve forgotten...
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We saw how eager the media, Dems, and others were to push baseless claims to destroy someone without evidence.
They’ll take unsubstantiated claims and level accusations against you as if they were already true. Elected officials, members of the media, thought leaders, and beyond would attack you from all sides.
Even the future Democratic Vice Presidential nominee would be involved. @KamalaHarris
These attacks and general skepticism will only apply to you, of course. Your accuser will get only fawning coverage. Here’s @nytimes and one of their opinion columnists, @michelleinbklyn.
They’ll amplify conspiracy theories and baseless accusations against you without making any pretense of vetting them first.
Rather than have a shred of incredulity when the most ridiculous of allegations, pushed by an outright fraud, come to light, they buy the claims hook, line, and sinker.
Hard to overstate how pervasive this phenomena was.
Here’s @CNBC’s White House reporter @christinawilkie running with the entire allegation.
I needed an entire tweet to highlight @SethAbramson, who said of @MichaelAvenatti and his invented claims “the man plans to run for president; my gut tells me he doesn’t go public with these allegations unless he’s got some pretty compelling witnesses and evidence”
Even their fact checkers will push unverified allegations that would eventually be referred for prosecution. Here’s @CNN’s @ddale8.
The truth of it doesn’t matter at all. If it bleeds, it ledes.
They’ll publicly crucify you for the crimes of others, or the crimes of a system. Here’s @voxdotcom
And if you dare protest - if you push back with even a hint of frustration as you see your good name dragged through the mud - you’ll have that used as a mark against you, too. Here we have @JohnBrennan, @MSNBC, @MalcolmNance and @lithub.
Really hard to overstate how frequent this line of criticism was.
I wonder if @NAACP, @NickKristof, @JoyAnnReid or @peterdaou could envision why someone would be angry for having their character picked apart on baseless claims?
And then they’ll demand you complete yet another background check - after you’ve passed SIX of them - if you want any hope of convincing them.
Are these the people and institutions you think you can trust and count on? Are these the parties you think you can negotiate with on a new SCOTUS Justice? Are these your good faith partners?
Because I, for one, have had it. I’m not interested in another round of this bad faith insanity.
The gov’t finally released pictures of Biden with his son Hunter’s business partners.
You may remember the corporate press alleging for years that there’s no evidence Biden had any contact with Hunter’s shady businesses.
I think some corrections are in order. ⤵️
For years, the corporate press ran cover for claims that President Biden wasn’t involved in Hunter’s unsavory business dealings, particularly with foreign governments.
That was all a sham.
I think @nytimes should correct the record now that we know their reporting is false.
If this story is worth reporting on — and it appears that @washingtonpost thought it was, at least when the narrative helped Democrats — then it should be worth following up when we get new information that makes clear the Post reported in error.
Biden’s pardoning of his son Hunter says an enormous amount about the president’s views of justice.
But it also says a lot about the willingness of the mainstream media—the nation’s noble fact checking corps—to repeat bogus claims that suit Democrats.
Remember? ⤵️
For starters, let’s revisit the coverage of how Biden wouldn’t do what he just did.
Biden said he wouldn’t pardon his son, no way. He would trust our legal system.
The media repeated it at every turn, without a shred of incredulity.
Here’s @washingtonpost
Seemingly every outlet did the same. @CNN had a couple of my favorites.
Look at the lede in on this first one.
The media’s job isn’t to simply repeat what politicians tell them. Whatever happened to “defenders of our democracy” and all that?
The news that MSNBC may soon have a new owner (and that it might be a certain X power user) compelled me to finally open my “MSNBC conspiracy theories” screenshot folder and, woo boy, there are a lot.
If you’d like to revisit them, buckle up, and follow along. ⤵️
There’s nowhere better to start than with Russiagate.
Do you remember the promotion from @chrislhayes, @MalcolmNance, @maddow and others at @MSNBC that perhaps Donald Trump was a Russian agent?
I, for one, will not be forgetting.
But there was plenty of other insanity from the gang at MSNBC about Russiagate.
Here are just a couple.
The first seems apropos with Trump again picking a cabinet.
Whatever happened to Harris and Biden’s “strongest economy ever” that the media spent so much time hyping up in the lead up to the election?
I revisit the claims, and explain why they were off the mark about the economy all along, in my latest @AmerCompass.
Quick🧵thread🧵⤵️
It can be easy, in the wake of an election, to forget just how dominant a media narrative was.
One that’s already fading from view was how “great” the economy was, and why it would benefit Harris on Election Day. americancompass.org/its-still-the-…
As a refresher, check out this headline from @axios about the data.
@YahooFinance upgraded Biden’s economic grade to an A. That captures the press sentiment at the time quite well.
In recent days, the mainstream media has taken nakedly ridiculous claims about the tattoos of @PeteHegseth, Trump’s SecDef nominee, to spin up a story alleging he’s an extremist.
It’s an egregious example of politically driven “journalism.” I unpack why. ⤵️
The story really started with @AP, who ran an article claiming that two tattoos that @PeteHegseth has have ties to extremism, citing an extremely thin (and downright suspect) report.
They used that to label him a potential “insider threat” in their headline.
It wasn’t until 3 paragraphs in that a reader was told what that claim rested on: a tattoo of a Latin phrase. They’d go on to mention “concerns” about a cross tattoo as well.
Would be great if Trump’s unconventional picks for his cabinet inspire the media to consider a nominee’s credentials.
They might want to look at the current HHS Secretary, Xavier Becerra, who brings to the table the medical experience of being in Congress for 12 terms.
Or perhaps Obama’s former HHS Secretary, Sylvia Matthews Burwell, who had just finished her stint lobbying for Walmart.
Or Donna Shalala, Clinton’s former head of HHS, whose credentials were as a university administrator and feminist.