Glenn Greenwald: The False and Exaggerated Claims Still Being Spread About the Capitol Riot
Condemning that riot does not allow, let alone require, echoing false claims in order to render the event more menacing and serious than it actually was. There is no circumstance or motive that justifies the dissemination of false claims by journalists. The more consequential the event, the less justified, and more harmful, serial journalistic falsehoods are.
Yet this is exactly what has happened, and continues to happen, since that riot almost seven weeks ago. And anyone who tries to correct these falsehoods is instantly attacked with the cynical accusation that if you want only truthful reporting about what happened, then you’re trying to “minimize” what happened and are likely an apologist for if not a full-fledged supporter of the protesters themselves.
One of the most significant of these falsehoods was the tale — endorsed over and over without any caveats by the media for more than a month — that Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick was murdered by the pro-Trump mob when they beat him to death with a fire extinguisher. That claim was first published by The New York Times on January 8 in an article headlined “Capitol Police Officer Dies From Injuries in Pro-Trump Rampage.” It cited “two [anonymous] law enforcement officials” to claim that Sicknick died “with the mob rampaging through the halls of Congress” and after he “was struck with a fire extinguisher.” […]
After publication of these two articles, this horrifying story about a pro-Trump mob beating a police officer to death with a fire extinguisher was repeated over and over, by multiple journalists on television, in print, and on social media. It became arguably the single most-emphasized and known story of this event, and understandably so — it was a savage and barbaric act that resulted in the harrowing killing by a pro-Trump mob of a young Capitol police officer.
It took on such importance for a clear reason: Sicknick’s death was the only example the media had of the pro-Trump mob deliberately killing anyone.
As we now know, that was false. That and much more.
Related: A left-wing activist facing criminal charges for his involvement in the Capitol riots received $35,000 from both CNN and NBC for footage he recorded of a Trump supporter being fatally shot inside the Capitol building, according to records he filed in federal court on Tuesday.
” . . . if you want only truthful reporting about what happened, then you’re trying to “minimize” what happened . . .”
This is a confession.
When their lies are exposed they persist in their monopolization of truth and virtue nonsense with their moralized mendacity.
That the truth blows apart their argument of a coup attempt, a nonsensical ploy from the start, gives them no pause.
Some insurgency. The only death was one insurgent, due imho to excessive force of security, and four of natural causes.
Scores died in rioting over the summer with $billions in property damage. Police were executed in the same of social justice.
Idiots stormed the Supreme Court during the Kavanaugh hearing. More idiots stormed Washington on Trump’s inauguration .
Oh but “nobody died” at the hands of these hooligans in Washington, they argue as they split yet another hair.
But “nobody died” at the hands of hooligans on 6 Jan.21 either, and Trump’s protesters were peaceful, unlike others.
The truth means nothing, the entitled identists just say one stupid irrelevant thing after another, and get a press pass.
Literally. Plus they get Pulitzers for lying to America and Emmys for political theatre as they negligently kill thousands.
They’re not accountable, not even to voters, to nobody, except their fellow corrupt cronies. That changes or civil society ends.
Thank you for again highlighting this story.
Personally, I have been aghast at the language many conservative talking heads have been using to describe this riot. Pissed off, actually. I honestly don’t remember such harsh condemnation of the CHAZ invasion, a long-term illegal occupation of a portion of an American city. Just look at the multiple murders we witnessed on video that the left pretends never happened. Many conservative media eventually seemed stuck on just milking the entertainment value of it all, but they fed the flames on this one.
We are now so afraid of the power of the left that I have only seen one or two mentions that the election was stolen over the past week. Sad as hell. Soon, we probably won’t be able to publicly claim that Dem lawyers falsified evidence.
That “taking the high road” approach to January 6th by conservatives was stupid. All it did was solidify the Left’s position.
“Falsified Evidence”? Nonsense.
In the leftists intersectional world of BAMN (by any means necessary) and Moral Relativism (“evidence” is a “white man” concept, which has no meaning in the POC world) … “evidence” is irrelevant and therefore can NEVER be “falsified”.
Yes, that’s the world we are living in (until it collapses from its own toxic idiocy)
CO, they go along to get along!
If any journalism is being practiced today, it is by Independent Journalists. They are the ones doing hands on, in the trenches reporting, not the sofa jockeys, who curate tweets, gossip, and rumors. Some Independents are in the midst of migrating to the uncensored web sites, like Locals. As for Jan 6th, all the adults in the room know you have to wait, sometimes weeks, for the real facts to trickle out. I took the Sicknick story at face value for about 8 hours, before it started to stink.
The thing is, if the events of Jan 6th were so heinous and outrageous, the truth should have stood on its own. So why did the Dems have to cherry pick the news, embellish it, deceptively edit the videos, fabricate evidence, alter evidence?
I watch a YouTube channel called The Gaggle. It’s politics from an international bent. The have ridiculed the impeachment clown show. They were befuddled by Nancy Pelosi’s bizarre behavior following the dismissal. Why did she have a public tantrum after the Impeachment vote? She reinforced the message that the Dems failed. What was she expecting? Was she expecting a different result, but was outplayed? .
Most of the people in the Capitol looked like tourist who were actually welcomed in by guards. There were probably only a dozen or so anarchist/communist types breaking things. Once the crowd had cleared, pretty much voluntarily, the place was back in business in 2 hours. A cop died of an unrelated stroke a couple days later. The only fatality was an unarmed women butchered by some legislator’s security, probably the vile racist, Maxine Waters’ henchman. Every big city in America had a bigger Antifa/BLM shit show last summer.
Reichstag Fire lite.
It was a planned event – And it’s why Democrats folded like a cheap suit and went straight to closing arguments without calling witnesses because they knew Trump’s legal team were going to call that stuttering, incoherent mess, Nancy Pelosi as a witness herself.
You know who else knew? Mitch McConnell.
Yes it was. And CNN paid an agent provocateur to incite violence that was directly responsible for the murder of Ashli Babbitt. Not only is CNN responsible for her death, they are a domestic terrorist organization. Trump was right when he called the media an enemy of the people.
It never ceases to amaze me that, in 2021, anyone expects MSM to be impartial, or even thinks that it “should” be. All media outlets are simply propaganda outlets in support of their owner’s interests. Why anyone would think that any propaganda outfit should support their enemies is beyond me.
Most media outlets, ever, have been their owner’s personal soapbox. Why anyone would think that any propaganda outfit is anything different is most of them spent most of the twentieth century persuading the public that “journalism” was somehow a noble profession dedicated to objective reporting of truth and factual information in the service of everyone, equally.
One of the things lost in all this is the question of what’s the appropriate way to protest something when you’re not happy with your government.
There are people who aren’t happy with the way policing is done. They take to the streets, burn down their neighbors shops and stores and in the process kill some people. Neither the businesses or these people have anything to do with the problem they are completely innocent bystanders. This is somehow seen as legitimate.
Then there’s another group of people who aren’t happy about the lack of transparency in an election, and they take their protest to the people in charge, to the people responsible, to the government. And that is seen as illegitimate.
Private property? Who cares!
Public property? Whoa, wait a minute we got a problem here.
Is there a starker contrast between the people and the ruling class? Not likely. And the media plebe’s don’t see it at all.
The ruling class is PAYING the media plebe’s.
Who shot Ashli Babbitt and what’s the story? What’s the story on the two officers who reportedly committed suicide?
Ashli Babbitt likely died as a result of the officer hearing CNN’s paid Antifa yell “gun! gun!”.
That’s the story you can’t be told.
It’s extraordinary how CNN and MSNBC are amplifying the events of Jan 6. No sane person could call it a credible, cohesive attempt to overthrow the government. I’m sure there were some loonys in the crowd with grandiose delusions, but most of the people were just angry demonstrators.
So why are the networks doing this? Ratings perhaps. But I suspect they also see an opportunity to consolidate the Democrats’ hold on power.
They know pipe bombs were placed the night before the event.
This was planned by a few, probably even involves some demoncrats no doubt.
The fbi doj and the courts are so corrupt it is sickenning.
There are still some journalists doing a good job. I watched a piece by a gal from I think Japan who showed that Sullivan guy,, who was right beside the lady who was shot and killed, he then takes off down the stares and changes clothes.
The japaneese journalist new all this within no time.
Where was cnn? Or any of the rest of the media.
Matter of fact cnn had this Sullivan on and interviews him like he was a hero.
The little b is Anita or BLM as far as I’m concerned.
No hero for sure!
The Antifa riots never received the same level of outrage because of who’s ox was getting gored.
The media has not been about information they are part of the rumour mill.
Their bread and butter has always been about influencing public opinion.
The Nielsen ratings where never about what show was popular, it was about how large a captive audience was.
It has been thus ever since written text was invented, Gutenberg just made the influence industry more efficient by allowing more people to practice influencing audiences.
The internet did the same.
Print, radio, tv, and online, the goal has always been to be on the credit side of things so one could command top price from those with much to gain, and more from those with much to lose from the wrong opinion getting out.
They are pissing on our heads and demanding we call it rain.
The “Media” are lying propagandists for some of the most vile psychopaths to ever run loose in society.
They excuse murder,intimidation and corruption so blatant that most of us would choke on.
And we know it,even the crusted on viewers know they are being”Nudged” into an alternate reality.
President Trump nailed them,in his direct way,they are the enemy of the people.
Pretending to be guardians of Truth and the American Way they instead are snivelling lapdogs to the power that owns them and sniggering hyenas to the private citizens who contradict them.
The posting yesterday ,where the poor wee reporter laments the demise of Intimidation Inc,whining about the loss of influence of his gang.
No one fears us any more..But it seems to miss the rest of the story,as they so often do,we loath them.
They have caused so much chaos with their lies and omissions and excused so much corruption, that they are culprits we focus on.
The politicians will get a pass as the mob eats the Urnalists..
Old story,one these idiots never read,or reported on.
A good many readers here have been calling the “Riot in the Rotunda” another Reichstag fire. In actuality it was more like the Operation Canned Goods. Just another example of Dems/Libs showing their true colours by their actions. Funny, is it not, that they are recreating the same scenario that brought the Nazis to power almost a hundred years ago. They even attempted, with the willing assistance of the media, to create another Horst Wessel. The problem that occurred for them was that the murder of Ashli Babbitt did not result in a crescendo of return gun fire that they perhaps were hoping would happen. BLM and Antifa provocateurs dressed as Trump supporters could not incite the crowd to the level that required the Neo-Nazis to implement martial law. The following impeachment farce did not ignite the general public to clamor for someone’s head to their great disappointment. The problem that they refuse to see is that after so many failures they will keep trying and we will all be the worst for their attempts.
The only insurrection in the US started before Trump was elected and continues to this day. The deeply corrupted state had been weaponized under successive administrations and the bureaucracy – reaching an apex under Obama but successfully implemented against Trump throughout his administration (and beyond). It is an insurrection against the Constitution and it has materialized as the march through the institutions has largely been completed. An armed insurrection is too “South American” for the US and instead it’s been institutional but the appearance of the garrisoned Capital to this day says possibly otherwise.
The strategic blunder of the loose cannon populist POTUS was to play into their hands with this protest and that’s all it was.
The date of the payment to the left wing rioter looks like the 12th of February on the invoice, a full month after the riot.
The media is acting like the Palestinian Authority and paying off terrorists after they have done what the media wants them to do.
The left creates a narrative with just enough truth for idiots to swallow, rinse and repeat and too many so called conservatives are happy to run with it and use their terms and conditions. Insurrection? The election wasn’t actually stolen. Trump says bad things. Climate change. Green energy. This goes all the way back to using the Marxist pejorative “capitalism” to describe what, at its most successful, is more rightfully described as free markets.
Seems like a good place to leave a link to this article. Edward Curtin makes the case that the deep state and the media are one:
https://off-guardian.org/2021/02/14/opening-the-cias-can-of-worms/
Ever get the sense that there are things out there bigger than anything you could ever imagine?
Media, Alphabet agencies, cops, Big Tech, Democrats, anarchists, progressives, judiciary, unions, GOP swamp rats…they’re all players on this one huge team and they’re all reading from the same playbook and here we are just normal everyday Conservatives/Republicans barking back and forth to each other about how biased they are as if they’d actually care if we pointed it out.
They’re not hiding it anymore because they don’t have too. Lies? Pfffffftttt, no big whoop.
I’m not throwing in the towel…but something definitely has to change.
“Their ABC paid $USD2,500 to left-wing activist John Sullivan – now facing charges over Washington riots”
That is ABC Oz
https://www.michaelsmithnews.com/2021/02/their-abc-paid-usd2500-to-left-wing-activist-john-sullivan-now-facing-charges-over-washington-riots.html
Plus other threads around this
Let’s just say they are liars and be done with all the euphemisms.
In hindsight there is a weird side to the narrative.
if 6th January was an insurrection by Conservative Terrorists..why are the Progressives so scared?
Cause if that was the best the “Red necked rebellion” could do..we are pathetic.
They Lie.
It is all they got.
Imagine their utter terror if they allowed their opponents any competence.