This Post Has 2 Comments

1. 

   Erich Vieth October 16, 2021 Reply

   “On Monday, Attorney General Merrick Garland issued a memorandum in which he wailed about the “disturbing spike in harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence against school administrators, board members, teachers, and staff.” Clearing his throat with an empty nod to the inconvenient fact that the Constitution protects “spirited debate,” Garland incorrectly — indeed, outrageously for someone of his experience as a Justice Department official and federal appellate judge — claimed that free-speech principles yield not only to “threats of violence” but also to “efforts to intimidate individuals based on their views” (at least, evidently, individuals not named Sinema or Manchin). Garland knows this is dangerous nonsense.”
   
   https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/10/the-biden-justice-departments-lawless-threat-against-american-parents/
   
   Here’s more . . .
   
   “The Department of Justice’s directive doesn’t even specify what it classifies as a crime in these cases, because the entire effort seems to be meant to chill speech. This form of state intimidation plays out in two ways.
   
   First, parents, who have every right to confront board members at meetings, write them angry emails, and call their offices, shouldn’t be treated like the Weather Underground simply because a small fraction of them act like buffoons. If we used the Biden administration standard, presidents would summon the FBI to investigate domestic terrorism for virtually any political protest.
   
   Can you imagine the outrage if a Republican administration had written directives on how to investigate people who were participating in “resist” meetings or the Black Lives Matter movement? When the Trump administration sent federal agents to Portland after professional Antifa rioters — a group widely celebrated by left-wing commentators — tried to firebomb a federal courthouse, there was hysteria. “Trump’s Occupation of American Cities Has Begun,” wrote Michelle Goldberg in the New York Times. “Can we call it fascism yet?”
   
   https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/10/the-biden-administration-is-trying-to-intimidate-parents/

2. 

   Erich Vieth October 23, 2021 Reply

   Remember how NSBA accused parents of being domestic terrorists? Remember how this led to coordination through the White House, leading to Merrick Garland’s announcement that the Justice Dept will crack down on these people? Now the NSBA has issued an apology for its lies. That was after Garland’s stern threats were obediently reported by every major legacy media outlet. This is yet another example of how left-wing hysterics replace facts in many “news stories.” Another recent example is that “1,000 Netflix employees” walked off the job protesting Dave Chapelle when it was only a couple dozen. And then, of course, there were two-years of non-stop Russia-Trump Collusion, Russian Bounty, Russia pee tape and Russian bank corruption. Journalistic malpractice is rampant.

   

   More commentary on recent journalism malpractice:

   From Jesse Singal

   This AP photo caption reads “Comedian and videographer Vito Gesualdi screams profanities as he engages with peaceful protesters begging him to leave.” A damaging claim about
   @VitoGesualdi, circulated globally.

   It never happened. Join me on some basic photo-trutherism.

   From Matt Taibbi:

   First, there were the numbers. Over the course of the last week, news commentators predicted a huge demonstration of Netflix employees in protest of comedian Dave Chappelle’s The Closer special, with Yahoo! typifying coverage. “Reports say that one thousand Netflix employees — nearly 10% of the company’s workforce,” they wrote, “are planning an October 20 walkout to protest the Chappelle special.”

   The Hollywood Reporter did say “at least one thousand” were planning on participating in a “virtual walkout,” whatever that is, but noted the story first came out in The Verge, which talked about a “company-wide” demonstration. Others followed, mostly without any hint that any of the reporters involved talked to anyone at Netflix but the demonstration’s organizers.

   Nobody checked, because everyone liked the narrative as was. As a result, “at least one thousand” became gospel, via headlines like Gizmodo’s “1,000 Netflix Employees Are Reportedly Planning Walkout to Protest New Chappelle Special,” or The Independent inviting us to “watch live” as “more than one thousand Netflix employees are set to walk out of their jobs on Wednesday.”