“If we don’t have a free press, if we cannot make informed decisions at the ballot box, if we can’t hold people like me accountable, and make sure that we’re held honest to the promises that we made, to the job that we’re performing in these positions of public trust, we’ll lose the essence of our democracy.”
This is really good stuff. That is, if the person who made this proclamation really meant it. Who said this? Beto O’Rourke, the Mexican Irishman running for President, at an MSNBC town hall forum last year.
Based on his recent actions, this was just pablum for the masses. O’Rourke never expected that someone in the press corps would try to hold him accountable. After all, he is a Democrat and such proclamations by Democrats are never intended to be acted on.
Last week O’Rourke’s campaign ejected Breitbart News senior editor-at-large Joel Pollak from a speech at the historically black Benedict College to “protect black students.” In other words Pollak was a racist and the students there might feel unsafe if he was present.
The campaign said,
“Given this particular Breitbart employee’s previous hateful reporting and the sensitivity of the topics being discussed with students at an HBCU (event), a campaign staffer made the call to ask him to leave to ensure that the students attending the event felt comfortable and safe while sharing their experiences as young people of color.”
Whoa! So the campaign is protecting people of color from the press! Does the campaign think that these people are unable to discern for themselves truth from fiction? Does the campaign think that these people lack the necessary intelligence to ferret out the facts of the matter for themselves? This is about as racist as one can get when you “protect” people based on their skin color because you think they are not smart enough to do so themselves.
So, what was the nature of the “hateful” reporting that prompted the campaign to eject this “racist” reporter from the event?
First, let it be noted that Joel Pollak is Jewish and married to a black woman currently serving in the US military. The idea that Pollak is racist is absurd. Anyone who has read his articles understands this. This was just the usual fallback defense of a Democrat when they are caught doing something wrong. That is, the reason they did what they did is because the other person is a racist. And that makes their actions okay.
Pollak’s removal occurred one day after Pollak asked O’Rourke about misquoting President Trump’s “very fine people” comments on the 2017 protest in Charlottesville, Virginia. Pollak asked if this was in line with his promise not to “inflame” divisions in the country. Pollak did this in a civil manner that was not couched in partisan terms.
“Are you aware that you are misquoting him, or partially quoting him — not quoting the full extent of his remarks in Charlottesville? Are you concerned that that might inflame tensions rather than heal divisions?”
It should be noted that the reporter gave O’Rourke a possible way out of his false comments about Charlottesville. Beto could have just said that it was what he had read in the media.
However, O’Rourke responded with a litany of lies.
“I believe in the truth, and in being honest about what the president was doing. And it’s not just that he referred to Klansmen as ‘very fine people,’ it’s that he attempted to ban all people of one religion from this country. We’re constantly warned of an ‘invasion’ of killers, and rapists, and animals, from Central America and Mexico, though we know that they commit crimes at a far lower rate than those who are born in this country. This is a very coordinated attack on minorities in this country, on the most vulnerable and the defenseless, for political gain for the president. And he knows full well that it not only offends our sensibilities as a country, it is leading to violence and the taking of lives, as we saw in El Paso.”
Beto doubled down on the Charlottesville lie. Since he refused to acknowledge the misquoting in his response, he knows what he is saying is false. It is somewhat tiresome to have to rebut this lie since it has been rebutted so many times before. However, PDJT said that the non-violent protestors represented good people with a difference of opinion about removing the Robert E Lee statue. PDJT categorically denounced the thugs (the KKK, Antifa) who were rioting. Such activities led to the death of one young woman.
The banning of people from one religion from this country is a four Pinocchio’s level of falsehood. There are almost 50 Muslim majority countries in the world. How many of those countries were banned from entering this country? To hear Beto tell it, it must have been all or almost all. Nothing is further from the truth. Less than half a dozen were stopped from sending people here along with a couple of countries with non-existent Muslim populations. The reason was their inability to properly vet the people who wanted to come here. Beto should know this but he continues to spread this falsehood around the country. Is this healing divisions in the country?
O’Rourke’s next statement about killers, rapist, et al, absolutely boggles the mind. It is an unassailable fact that the illegal alien criminals who cross the border commit crimes at a much HIGHER rate than those born here. A short stroll though the characteristics of the prison population in this country confirms this.
Beto’s statements were simply falsehoods made for his own political gain. Of course, his campaign is in the gutter in the polls. That seems appropriate since he spends a lot of time in the gutter trying to divide this country.
This is the modern Democratic Party.