... The most recent example of what I’m talking about appeared in this very newspaper. I refer you to this Post headline from Tuesday: “Trump, without evidence, blames ‘rhetoric’ of Biden, Harris for possible assassination attempt.” I’m in no way picking on my own news site here, which I hold to be among the very best; these kinds of phrases — “without evidence,” “baselessly claimed,” etc. — have over the years become ubiquitous in stories about Trump in the national media....
The news media can’t credulously publish things we know to be untrue — and yet, if the president says them, we can’t exactly not publish them, either.
The truth, which you can publish, is that Trump said what he said. People assert things all the time without laying out their evidence, so you don't have to tell us that in the sentence that reports that he said something. It looks biased. If you want to say that YOU have researched the question and determined that there is no evidence, you should write a separate sentence asserting that and only that. If you haven't looked very far and you only can truthfully say that YOU haven't noticed any evidence yet, you should write a sentence that says only that. Don't mix what you know about a topic in with what Trump happened to say about it. That's the problem!
At the same time, we find ourselves pressured by critics on social media for whom no level of scrutiny, when it comes to Trump, will ever be enough.
If your journalism is structured to respond in advance to pressure from the anti-Trump faction, you have a problem. You shouldn't even be trying to satisfy these people, but you seem to be saying that satisfying them is only wrong because they are too hard to satisfy, and now you want to complain publicly because their criticism of you for not doing enough is making you FEEL bad.
So, at some point, we decided that the best way to handle Trump’s more dubious assertions was to take the unprecedented step of prominently labeling them as baseless or unproven. Problem solved.
I'd like some details on WHO decided to "solve" that "problem" like that. Is Matt Bai just inferring that journalists must have made that decision or is he making that assertion without evidence? I think he's making an inference based on what we call in evidence law circumstantial evidence. Something happened that must have happened for a reason, so what's the most likely reason? This is what Trump is doing too, much of the time, and anti-Trumpsters don't like his inferences. But they make inferences too.
Except it hasn’t solved anything, other than to make a bunch of preening media critics feel good.
Preening? They should be ashamed if this has made them feel good. And I don't like "hasn’t solved anything," because you have not convinced me that you are solving the right problem. You're talking to me as though I already agree with you and all we need know is whether the solution is working:
If anything, in the contest between Trump’s credibility and ours, this policy of hyper-skepticism has only made things worse. First, it’s an unreasonable standard. It’s one thing to say that Trump’s stories of a stolen election or pet-eating migrants are false — this we know from reporting. But when it comes to something like this claim about Democratic rhetoric leading to violence, what kind of evidence is Trump supposed to cite? Must a candidate walk around all day with an armful of data to back up every assertion? Is there really no room to advance a controversial and speculative argument without producing slides to support it?
Ha ha. Now, he's reached the point I made above. Speakers don't continually lay out all the evidence. They can't and they won't. And that's what's scaring Matt Bai here — I infer! — he can see that his people, the Democrats, do the same thing. Read on and check the accuracy of my inference:
In fact, while Trump’s latest allegation might be incendiary, there’s no reason we ought to dismiss it out of hand. Haven’t Democrats repeatedly said he poses an existential threat to the democracy and is a tool of the Russians? (I, for one, believe both of these things.)
Matt Bai says, without evidence, that Trump is a tool of the Russians. And he admits it.
It’s not crazy to think that these kinds of statements could incite violence, any more than it’s crazy to think that Trump’s rhetoric led to the sacking of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Saying so shouldn’t come with a courtroom-level burden of proof. Second, it’s a double standard. Why is Trump the only politician for whom this burden exists?...
Obviously, the answer to that question is that the media are biased. Why is Matt Bai just noticing that (or, to put it more realistically, pretending to just notice that)?
The larger problem with all this selective labeling is that it’s almost certainly having the opposite effect of what we intend. Rather than highlight Trump’s falsehoods for readers who might be inclined to believe him, our need to append qualifiers to everything he says is making us look like we’re out to discredit him.
Look like you're out to discredit him? Is that evidence that you are out to discredit him? I infer from the circumstantial evidence that the elite media are out to discredit Trump.
In other words, we appear to be proving Trump’s entire point not just about the news media but about the nation’s elite institutions as a whole.
Appear to be?
Rather than reinforcing trust in news coverage, I fear we’re further eroding it.
Oh, really?
All of which really matters, because in seven weeks Trump could well win a second term....
If you had asserted that it really matters because journalists should adhere to professional ethics, I would have suspected that what really matters to you is defeating Trump, so thanks, at least, for expressing your true motive clearly.
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Excellent. Thaks for the fisking, AA.
Thank you for the early morning Fisk.
Read some of Matt Taibbi's reporting over the last year, and it's far from just "preening media critics" that the Deep State-driven media are listening to when deciding how to cover Donald Trump. Or really report any news for at least the last 8 years, if not more.
In the original draft of this post, I'd written, in the last sentence, "I would have suspected that what really matters." That was just a mistake, and it's not correct to "I would have suspected that what really matters."
Sherlock Holmes would likely say there's plenty of evidence the various disclaimers the media use are in fact backfiring. When a dog doesn't bark as a man walks near, it tells you the relationship of the man and the dog.
It looks biased
…and if they’re not supplying the qualifiers to the candidates they are trying to support it IS biased. Say it: It IS biased.
...this is unfortunately all within the context of them trying to act as journalists. They abandoned that goal long ago. Some told you they were suspending journalism in op-eds. They are propagandists, and so is this…
To our intensifying discussion about whether Joe Biden has grown mentally fuzzy and too old for a second term, I’d like to add this question: How would we even notice Donald Trump’s lapse into incoherence, when derangement is essentially his brand?
Clues and hints are evidence. They are failing by placing the standard of what is evidence inappropriately high…
A good, old fashioned Fisking. I missed those days. Well done and this gets my morning off to a great start.
Very nice piece by our hostess. Bravo!
Pure Althouse. A brilliant media takedown before 6 am.
I listened to Trump’s appearance on Gutfeld last night. Trump - and the guests - were all very funny. I thought to myself, “Trump is really a great guy. He really loves his country and has a special kind of genius.”
The questions from Gutfeld were fabulous. There is no way in the world Harris could do Gutfeld. She’s not smart enough to do that show. If she can’t do any interviews at all - much less Gutfeld - how can she be The Leader of the Free World?
He believes that Trump is "a tool of the Russians". No writer worth his salt would use such a broad and empty word. This guy's heroes are also tools of the Russians. It's called geopolitics.
This isn't a serious article. It's a chance to virtue-signal while pretending to breast-beat.
This is the content which keeps me coming back to Althouse
To reconnect this off-topic comment with the Professor's post, one can reasonably *infer* that Trump's ability to speak at length in a broad range of situations and with a wide variety of interlocuters, few of whom claim he's incoherent afterwards, is evidence that he's not. Even Bai is not claiming Trump is incoherent. If his statements were incoherent there would be no reason to have to label them as not based in evidence.
I will also infer from your attempt to derail this discussion that you're fully aware Bai is correct in recognizing that Harris is being poorly served by both the media obsession with 'getting' Trump, and their cooperation with a virtual blackout of her policy statements.
It’s all just such bs. There are literal videos of cats on a grill and they do the three monkeys thing to ignore the evidence. “The New York Times, ignoring evidence, said …” could lead every online discussion.
Let's pretend for a moment that there was something more than a drunk tale of Trump's involvement with Russia. If the media were unbiased in their concern about Trump being a "tool of the Russians"; then why did they not express such concerns about Bernie Sanders? Bernie Sanders ought to have beaten Hillary in the primary, if not for super delegates controlling the outcome. Bernie was that close to being the Democratic nominee. Yet the media doesn't talk about his background.
This year, we have Tim Walz, who has far closer ties to Communist China than anything Trump has been accused in relation to Russia. No concern again about Tim Walz being a tool of the Chinese. Why not? I thought there was a concern about foreign influence in our elections? I infer it is only a concern whether it helps or hurts Democrats.
Has anyone seen a video or print report from Springfield?
Matt Bai is ridiculous.
Here is the heart of the matter--this is exactly what is happening: "You're talking to me as though I already agree with you and all we need know is whether the solution is working."
A Fisking, well done!!
What’s the point of this article? Is Bai trying to turn the page (lol) regarding how Trump’s statements should be covered?
I feel the frustration in Althouse’s hopes for actual journalism being unmet again and again. As a public service I can assure anyone still possessing such hope that it will only get worse between now and the election and it will be dialed to eleven when he wins. Assuming the next two CIA patsies are failures like the first two.
Hey Dog-eater, go to YouTube and watch last night’s Gutfelddj ! show and tell me either Kammy or Joe is that sharp.
It’s impossible to correct spelling on the phone with the new format. GUTFELD!
Gutfeld/Trump
I have read excerpts from Chris Rufo's reporting on the situation. He actually did do the legwork necessary to nail down some facts. The cat BBQ apparently is not Springfield. IIRC he determined that originated in a facebook post from Dayton (with video) and got conflated with Springfield after some folks complained about missing pets at a Springfield city government meeting.
The Russell Conjugation is a tool of manipulation. It's how today's corporate media provokes your emotions so as to keep you hooked on their narrative, generating clicks and more clicks. For example, you could describe Heritage as a Conservative think tank or as a Right-Wing think tank. Which one is descriptive and which one is rage-bait?
when an "unnamed source" says that 'they heard from a friend, that somebody heard Trump say'.. That is reported as "news".
Then when Trump says that didn't happen, they report THAT as "Trump claimed, without evidence"
No concern again about Tim Walz being a tool of the Chinese. Why not?
well, their chauffeurs, mistresses, and bosses tell them It's NONE of their concern
" It’s one thing to say that Trump’s stories of a stolen election or pet-eating migrants are false — this we know from reporting."
Yes, if we don't look outside of what we ourselves report, we can prove a negative! Except that there is plenty of evidence.
You want to see video a neighbor took of Haitian migrants barbecuing cats on a grill?
https://christopherrufo.com/p/the-cat-eaters-of-ohio
This guy should have taken a class in logic fro the philosophy department, he would have learned that you can't prove a negative by simply refusing to look at evidence that you would prefer not to see. In fact, if you are going to assert a negative, which is what the writer does here, you either have to present a logical proof that cat eating by migrants is impossible, or you have to sort through the evidence exhaustively.
Either the guy is an idiot, or he's in the tank, and figures that enough idiots will believe him to make a difference.
We are living the prequel to 1984.
The communist Chinese used to pay posters like Rich 50¢ for each thread they would derail.
I don't think these people have the influence they think they have. Trump support comes from the heart, that part of you that knows what it knows but can't articulate it. Good luck persuading that!
Teamsters vote 60-40 for Trump, then Bai writes a “gee maybe we’re doing this wrong” article…. Lol
There is a SHITLOAD of evidence, all over X, especially from GA, PA, AZ, and WI that the 2020 election was fraudulent. The media is complicit in their "without evidence" bullshit. They openly support voter fraud. Do do Democrat voters. In their view, as long as they win, not matter how, Democracy is protected.
Here is their "logical proof":
If I believe this story, I am a racist.
I am not a racist, therefore I don't believe this story.
QED.
I remember hearing an interview on NPR of a Chinese academic, who had attended Harvard, and she made the comment that she knew America was a rich country, because nobody was catching and eating the fat squirrels in the parks in Cambridge.
My own father grew up poor in the mountains of greater Appalachia, on a tenant farm, and he was given the task as a teenager to hunt up food for the pot, admittedly not in public parks, but customs differ.
I just don't see what makes this story so hard to believe that one doesn't even need to look at the evidence to know that it is not true. The better approach would be to sympathize with the privation that these migrants have suffered, but that's politically risky, isn't it.
Every academic and leftist non-academic "fact-checking" organization -- most prominently Annenberg, Poynter Institute, MIT's media lab, CJS -- were funded with massive grants starting in the 1990s by Soros' Open Society Foundations. Scores of endowed chairs and continuing grants by him have also essentially populated and captured virtually every journalism school in the country.
"Something happened that must have happened for a reason, so what's the most likely reason?"
I'll take a guess. Too many journalists, editors and owners accepted those surprising and flattering invitations to P. Diddy's parties over the years. Laws and vows were broken. Videos were made. Gerbils died horribly. Pain and regret were experienced. Now they find themselves "pressured by critics."
Bloodbath, drink bleach, fine people. All of these things ARE STILL BEING SAID!
Thanks Ralph. When Tyrus gave him the belt I think Trump teared up.
Their lies never die. And very few corrections are ever issued. Being a Leftist means never having to admit you are -- or any ally of yours is -- wrong.
One of the consistent themes of Althouse posts for a long time has been posting a NYTs or WaPoo article or editorial, break it down, and call out the bullshit. But somehow in these posts and her analysis, I still get the feeling she is shocked these people are so full of shit. "Say it ain't so Joe!!"
Classic Althouse, the best!
I regard this as progress. He’s starting to feel guilty for what he’s done, which is to attempt to incite Trump’s assassination. It’s a start.
The liberal media is forced to use the empty mantra "without evidence" because there is a shitload of evidence for things they say are/were debunked.
Shitloads of liberal media and gov't officials (including Trump) told Americans over and over "the vaccine is safe and effective." Now we now it is neither. Some of us knew they were bullshitting and avoided the jab.
Matt Bai wrote…
“It’s not crazy to think that these kinds of statements could incite violence, any more than it’s crazy to think that Trump’s rhetoric led to the sacking of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.”
Sacking of the Capitol?
Strange, I haven’t seen any pictures of the site where this once August building stood. Are the ruins still smoldering?
Hmmm....the Chinese academic was right. I haven't seen Kung Pao Squirrel on the menu at our local Chinese take out place in Sussex.
The 2020 election was sabotaged and rigged. Right out in the open. Flagrantly. The same is true of the 2024 election, except that the sabotage and rigging are even more open and flagrant. I hate even voting because I don’t want to give credence to this Soviet style sham, but I probably will anyway.
There is no evidence.
Have you looked for evidence?
Evidence of what?
The thing you say there’s no evidence for.
There is no evidence.
But have you looked for evidence?
Evidence of what?
The thing you say there is no evidence for….
The media and Kamala-lala-ding-dong campaign are counting on people being stupid and having no memory. It's fun to say that it is Orwellian without realizing that it seems to be inexorably heading in that direction.
Trump is just the beginning. Every non-RINO will be treated in a similar fashion, openly and enthusiastically, especially if that candidate has a good chance of winning.
The Left has become completely intolerant of those who oppose their agenda. They will become more transparently authoritarian after Trump leaves the stage, not less.
This is a great fisking as others have said. The problem is that it's not on Tik-Tok. So it has no usefulness. Readers of the Althouse blog already know how the press works. The message conveyed will never reach any of the people who would benefit from this knowledge because they aren't here.
They're addicted to Tik-Tok.
https://pjmedia.com/matt-margolis/2024/09/18/a-disturbing-number-of-democrats-think-america-would-be-better-off-if-trump-were-assassinated-n4932622
Americans cannot hate members of the USA media and Democrat Party members enough. They are at war with us.
Plenty from locals on X confirming that there is a Haitian hobo jungle by the reservoir where the Haitians are living and cooking animals on open fires, cats, dogs, ducks, geese, pigs, chickens. It's absolutely happening.
The hysterical hyperbole is how Party members justify their evil.
"Without evidence" just emphasizes that the media is "fact checking" Trump and not the Democrats and indicates the readers that what Trump is saying isn't disproven, isn't "without evidence," and may well be true.
It's good that Bai is starting to question whether Democrats rhetoric might have led to the assassination attempts, but it's still disturbing that a journalist at a prestige paper has never had to defend and reconsider his believing "without evidence" that Trump is a tool of Russia.
"Sacking the Capitol." I imagine an old Mongol warrior shaking his head and saying "you call that a sacking? Pathetic."
It is posts like this that keep bringing me back to Althouse almost every single day for what is running up on 20 years now.
Speaking about "without evidence" we have the second line in the opinion piece:
"Trump’s own rhetoric — inflammatory, belittling, darkly warning of violence if he doesn’t get his way — probably has more to do with making him the target of delusional attention seekers than anything his opponents have said."
I would be quite surprised if he can actually come up with an actual quote "darkly warning of violence".
Something Bich will never do.
The media largely has no god damn clue what evidence is, yet (with false authority and confidence) throws around assertions "no evidence"!
As Ann points out, circumstantial evidence is a real type of evidence, relied upon all the time.
Not to sound too much like Lionel Hutz, but hearsay can be useful evidence, as can "expert" opinion, which is itself often conjecture, yet still considered evidence.
And those are references to rules in court. Such rules are not limitations on what constitutes evidence relied upon by people in real life all the time.
Apparently Matt Bai started his career writing for Audrey Hepburn. He should go back to doing that today, literally!
Are Matt Bai and the other self-described “journalists”’ at the Post deliberately ignoring Chris Rufo’s scrupulous reporting, and if so, why? Are they simply unwilling to look at any reporting not done by their own reporters or by the New York Times? Or do they ignore someone like Rufo because he’s regarded as being “of the right” and should be disbelieved on principle? (And should I put “principle” in scare quotes since it’s being associated with someone who writes for the Washington Post?). Dayton is less than 20 minutes away from Springfield on I-70, so “immigrants eating cats in Ohio towns is very, very real, and not “debunked” at all.
To anyone not suffering from TDS "without evidence" and "falsely claims" confirms that the MSM is in the tank for Democrats and is doing propaganda, not journalism. This is why the government is trying to censor the internet. Easily accessible alternate sources of information renders the MSM incapable of fulfilling their primary purpose. Setting the narrative.
"I feel the frustration in Althouse’s hopes for actual journalism being unmet again and again."
Attributing hope and frustration to me is your projection. I'm not afflicted by either.
"Matt Bai wrote... “It’s not crazy to think that these kinds of statements could incite violence, any more than it’s crazy to think that Trump’s rhetoric led to the sacking of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.” Sacking of the Capitol? Strange, I haven’t seen any pictures of the site where this once August building stood. Are the ruins still smoldering?"
I was going to go after that use of "sacking" but refrained. It's definitely wrong. "Sacking" is plundering, looting — taking stuff. The etymology comes from "sack" meaning a bag. You're stealing stuff, possibly in a bag.
Well said. If news journalists believe there’s a market for their opinions about the news they’re covering, simply insert the words “I think” before every assertion.
I estimate "without evidence" that at least 50% of what the mediaswine write about Trump and his supporters is "without evidence." There are still Democrats who suppose journalists verify their bullshit despite their not investigating or naming a source. The Marxists don't care.
Jan 6th was an "Insurrection!" "worse than 9/11..." [according to Kamala]. ... even though no one brought a gun.
The lemmings are running, they're running and running in their thousands. Every once in a while, a single lemming will ask, "Why are running? Where are we going? Wasn't there a huge cliff somewhere around here?" But he receives no answers and the colony runs on. The inquisitive lemming runs with them.
Politicians say a lot and a lot of what they say are lies or unprovable statements. Journalists simply don't have the time and resources to fact check everything a politician says when reporting on what politicians are saying. You can't publish your story in a timely fashion if you have to spend days or weeks fact checking everything a candidate says.
Normally I'd say that fact checking should be left to the professional fact checkers, but lately they've proven themselves to be unreliable.
Just look at what happened when the ABC debate moderators tried to appease their audience by trying to be fact checkers. They couldn't help but let their personal biases guide their fact checking and came off looking very unprofessional and biased.
DJ99 said…
“’Sacking the Capitol.’ I imagine an old Mongol warrior shaking his head and saying ‘You call that a sacking? Pathetic.’”
Heck, I imagine a British soldier from 24 Aug 1814 saying ‘You call that sacking a capital? Pathetic’”
She doesn't want them to be so full of shit, that would leave a big hole her day, her raison d'etre and perhaps a hole in her heart, so she gives them every benefit of every doubt.
What did they “fact-check” of Kamala’s statements vs Trump’s? It seems like it was pretty much one way.
It would be nice to see the "Leader of the Free World" concept fade away. This seemed a little OT at first, but much of the anguish expressed in the NYT article results from that kind of thinking. We would all be better off without looking for leadership in that direction.
“It is posts like this that keep bringing me back to Althouse almost every single day for what is running up on 20 years now.”
Exactly. Thanks Ann!
I cannot express how much the editorializing in headlines turns me off.
Great fisking!
Think this was in the context of the 2016 election and vote fraud . . . .
To often I heard, "We don't need to do an investigation 'cause there's no evidence there was any mischief." And here I thought that one undertakes an investigation, based on "suspicion" in order to look for and find, or not, "evidence" which could be used to confirm or reject the suspicion.
To be sure, under the Fourth Amendment (probable cause and all that), the rules for Law Enforcement to obtain a search warrant are tougher but an investigation can be undertaken by Congress, or any interested journalist, on mere suspicion.
I imagine their customers demand it. They can't even wait for the body of the article before Trump is called a liar. It needs to be in the headline.
Bai is used to that. Oh, wait… it’s fisking, not fisting.
The tl:dr is ”They’re eating the cats” claims, without evidence that Donald Trump is incoherent.
So let me get this straight: There's "no evidence" that the rhetoric about Trump's being a threat to democracy is prompting anyone to try to assassinate him. However, we're also being told by voices on the left that, to avoid being assassinated, Trump needs to stop sounding like he's a threat to democracy.
I declare, with strong evidence, that this is the Post of the Year, and one of the five or six best that our gracious hostess has blessed us with in the past two decades. A spectacular display of intellect and integrity.
That which is asserted without evidence may be (should be) just as easily denied, and with no more evidence than was offered by the person making the assertion.
Hitchens’ Razor.
I see nothing wrong with the media calling out any/every candidate who does not offer evidence for their claims. We as consumers of both political and media speech should look for/add the evidence before repeating unproven allegations, and the media has a duty to find the facts & substantiate true allegations & debunk false ones.
Everyone active duty or retired that I know- which includes me- has questions about Walz.
Cities were "sacked" back in the Middle Ages. "Cry Havoc" meant that soldiers were told to rape, plunder and burn the place down.
That sounds a helluva more like the Saint George Floyd riots than J6.
It's a good fisking, but not a great fisking. A great fisking would (1) have pushed back on the hyperbole of the Capitol having been "sacked" on January 6th -- the amount of damage was negligible -- and (2) point out that the story of "cat-eating migrants" is absolutely true (see Christopher B's reply to Dave Begley at 6:58). There may or may not have been Haitians in Springfield, Ohio, killing and eating people's pets, but there absolutely was a migrant (from Africa) in Dayton, Ohio, (less than 20 minutes west of Springfield on I-70) who was videotaped cooking cat carcasses on a backyard grill.
At the same time, we find ourselves pressured by critics on social media for whom no level of scrutiny, when it comes to Trump, will ever be enough.
I hesitate to write this because there's a small but nonzero chance that somebody from the Post might pull his or her head from its current spot inside the rectum and realize the blunder they've made, but ...
If there's nothing that will satisfy the "critics on social media" then why are you bothering? What do you have to gain? Votes for Kamala Harris? I think I can say with great confidence that each and every one of the unnamed critics is already going to vote for her seven weeks from now. The battle is being waged among the uncommitted and independent voters, the sort of people who think, when they plunk down their money for a copy of some newspaper that they are going to, you know, get some news.
And, really, it's worse even than Matt Bai admits. In the past couple of days a panel on CNN got a collective belly laugh about Donald Trump's story about telling "Abdul" what he would do to the Taliban leadership if a single American soldier was harmed. Ha, ha! Racist Donald Trump thinks every Muslim is named "Abdul." Ha, ha!
No one even bothered to check because to people in the newsmedia bubble, it is pointless to fact-check Trump because everything he says is wrong.
Except, the person with whom Trump was negotiating was named ... Abdul Ghani Baradar.
Great reporting, folks! Keep it up.
"any more than it’s crazy to think that Trump’s rhetoric led to the sacking of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021"
The Capitol was neither plundered nor destroyed. Hence, no "sacking". Colorful, emotive word, but not accurate. Now areas of Minneapolis, Portland, and other cities were sacked in that they were plundered by looting and destroyed by burning down buildings. On camera, with the perpetrators either not arrested or released and not charged.
Althouse @ 10:03am,
Etymology can certainly provide insight, but it is in no way definitive of what current usage means.
So no, if there wasn't any rape or arson included, then the place wasn't sacked, it was just burglarized.
Rocco, it was totally one way. That's what made it so unprofessional. They tried to fact check Trump but never once tried to fact check Harris' obvious lies.
Many who look at Ruffo’s video see some rando trespassing into another stranger’s yard, see something that looks to many two whole chickens on what seems to be an unmanned & not-obviously-lit grill, followed by two living cats in that same yard.
The man does not release his name, the address of the yard he trespassed into, or any other identifying feature. (Ruffo may have some of this info, but he’s not releasing it, either.)No Africans or Haitians appear in the video at any time.
For all we know, the guy who took the video may’ve set the whole thing up himself as a joke at the time he posted it, unaware that this “cats & dogs” nonsense was ever going to be a thing…
Can I definitively say it did not happen? No.
But I can say that I don’t find the Ruffo video to be any kinda proof that it definitively did. And in the absence of that proof, I’m going react as though it likely did not, and think of African migrants no differently than if I never saw Ruffo’s vid. (I think you all should as well, but that’s for you to determine.)
“In the original draft of this post, I'd written, in the last sentence, "I would have suspected that what really matters." That was just a mistake, and it's not correct to "I would have suspected that what really matters."”
Well…that certainly helps to clarify things. But then, what is correct?
The news media can’t credulously publish things we know to be untrue
That's literally never stopped them for the last nine years (and, I suspect, the next four).
My conclusion: Matt Bai wants to be able to walk into a cocktail party in DC and preen over this article.
If the dog growls it also tells you something about them.
So did the Supreme Court. UT of cowardice, I suppose
Well, I’ve seen the video too, and I cannot imagine how any, much less “many” could mistake skinned, cat-sized, quadrupeds for chickens on a grill. Rufo (which is the correct spelling of the man’s surname) describes in his Substack article precisely the steps he took to verify the authenticity of the video and to confirm the overall story. Repsac3 might not be persuaded, but it seems to me that anyone with an open mind and three digit IQ will find the story believable.
Skinned cats look NOTHING like raw, whole chickens. Idiot.
Gutfeld was a conversation. No, it wasn't confrontational but so what? Trump does plenty of confrontational interviews. I wouldn't expect Harris to go on Gutfeld, that's abridge too far, but she could spend an hour with Maddow and three lib pals in the same format and just chat. All indications though are that she's just not capable. You could easily tell the Gutfeld Trump wasn't scripted because it was Trump, the Unscriptable. You can see when Que? Mala? is reading the script in her head.
I suspect the bane of X is also plaguing "respectable Journalists" in the specter of community notes. That beyond the fact that their outright fabrications can be called out on X and shouted to the world.
The recent adoption by the mainstream media of the "without evidence" trope either needs to be universally condemned or universally adopted. When VP Harris claims that Trump said that the fascists and anti-fascists in Charlottesville were both asserting reasonable positions, the media should have said her assertion was "without evidence", because the record clearly shows that he didn't say that. Similarly, when she claimed that Trump asserted that if he was not re-elected it would cause a fire-storm the media should have said that her claim was "without evidence", because the record clearly shows that he didn't say that.
Don't forget the "suckers and losers" lie, which turned out to be actually said by Joe Biden's Press secretary Admiral John Kirby. Proving once again that democrat Party members are always actually guilty for the despicable things they accuse republicans of doing.
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