WaPo: GOP douses Afghanistan withdrawal with misinformation

[TomCADem]

This just goes to show that there is not an even playing field between Democrats and Republicans. There is the mainstream media that is generally tilted toward getting ratings (if it bleeds, it leads), which is not necessarily ideological, but it does tend to play to Republican willingness to push attention grabbing falsehoods.

Then, there is the whole Fox, OANN, Newsmax, Washington Examiner, etc., media that unapologetically pushes partisan, right wing propaganda with no regard for the truth.

On the left, you really do not have anything similar that serves to effectively defend Democrats. At best, you do have some left leaning shows like Rachel Maddow. However, a lot of so-called "progressive" outlets seem to traffic in Republican sounding attacks on Democrats from the "left" such as pushing anti-vax disinformation or attacking the Democratic "establishment" even during years when Republicans held the House, Senate and White House.

So, the cycle continues with Republicans and right wing outlets pushing outrageous lies and even the mainstream media getting caught up "debunking" Republican talking points, which sometimes helps serve to amplify them as is the case with vaccine misinformation.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/gop-douses-afghanistan-withdrawal-with-misinformation/ar-AANYGVD?ocid=msedgntp

The Afghanistan withdrawal has gone poorly enough for the Biden administration, and it did itself no favors with its faulty predictions about how it would be carried out. But even in the midst of the worst stretch of the Biden presidency thus far, the lure of misinformation has proved irresistible to its GOP critics.

They’ve trafficked repeatedly in recent days in false, misleading or unproved allegations involving the Taliban hanging someone from an American helicopter, President Biden skipping a ceremony for 13 Americans killed last week, military dogs being left behind, and $80 billion in military equipment being left for use by the Taliban. With the assistance of some high-profile conservatives and even congressional Republicans, these reports have proliferated on social media.

The process really kicked into gear over the weekend when conservatives accused Biden of skipping the ceremony at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware.

The problem was that when the allegation was lodged, the plane bearing the service members’ remains had yet to land. And when the ceremony began the next day, Biden was there. But the likes of Fox News’s Laura Ingraham, former Trump administration acting director of national intelligence Ric Grenell, a California GOP congressional candidate and others promoted the claim that Biden had been absent. They have since deleted their tweets.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

1. K&R

[Postal Grunt]

2. More of the SOSDD

"Falsehood flies, and the truth comes limping after it.”

attributed to Jonathan Swift, 1710

“Falsehood will fly from Maine to Georgia, while truth is pulling her boots on.”

Portland, ME Gazette, 5 September 1820

“A lie will go round the world while truth is pulling its boots on.”

C. H. Spurgeon, 1859

[TomCADem]

3. The Things That Makes the GOP Politically Successful Makes Them Terrible...

...at actually governing.

By creating and living within a propaganda bubble where facts and science do not apply, Republicans just need to create anxiety among their supporters to motivate them to vote. Of course, since their talking points are not based on facts and science, neither are their actual policy proposals. Indeed, policy itself is an after thought, because who cares about it, when all that matters is just blaming the Democrats.

Moreover, by sabotaging the Democratic process, Republicans no longer even need to be accountable to the larger electorate. Instead, Republicans can just focus on catering to a narrow band of society that is united by grievance toward their fellow Americans. It is a recipe for generating civil unrest. Of course, there is no incentive to actually making your constituents happy and satisfied, because happy people do not organize and vote. Instead, as Trump showed, even when Republicans hold all the levers of Government, the goal of Republicans is to continue to stir anxiety and hate, so that Republican supporters continuously feel under siege and hateful.

So, Republicans have developed a whole system for getting and maintaining political power even though their policies appeal to less and less of the electorate and are harmful overall. It is sort of like being a couch potato and eating junk food versus eating healthy and getting exercise. The former is easy and feels good in the short term, but is detrimental overall. The latter requires hard work and takes time to see results, but the results are positive if you put in the hard work.

[Champp]

4. GOP is among The Greatest Liars of all time

Deplorable, and anti-American.

Republicans would be SHOCKED if they ever read The Bible. It's got some wicked powerful DAMNATIONS of liars. Apparently, they are all going to Hell.

[gratuitous]

5. So the Post is now all concerned with "faulty predictions"

I wonder when that started? Were they concerned about the faulty predictions about Afghanistan from the Bush administration? Did Dubya's faulty predictions about when the mission was accomplished cause them to lose one minute of sleep, worrying about the way things might have been? Were the faulty predictions about the impact of Hurricane Katrina of any concern to the Post and other media outlets? Did the faulty predictions by Republicans about the Affordable Care Act give them even a moment's pause, or merit bringing up again later to the Republicans who made them? Just thinking about last year, my oh my! weren't there a lot of faulty predictions about the course of the Covid-19 pandemic from the former guy's administration. Did those faulty predictions get any re-visiting from the Post, and were hard questions posed to administration officials about the death toll has it mounted into the hundreds of thousands? Did the Post even demand that the former guy's administration resume the daily press briefing?

Now this brief listing of some of the more blatant lies being peddled by Republicans. When they come up again (they will come up again), will the Post call them out again, or will they be satisfied with "reasonable people disagree about whether President Biden was present when the service members' remains landed at Dover"?