Once again, the journalists are not sending their best.
While it’s no secret that journalists are notoriously liberal and narrative driven, they’re now reporting on their own hallucinations. We “learned” from our nation’s journos that as the crisis at the border escalates, agents on horseback have resorted to whipping Hattian illegals (who apparently thought it made more sense to travel roughly 2,000 miles to the U.S.-Mexico border instead of attempting to migrate to the country literally next to their own).
The bogus story appears to have originated with reporting from journo Martha Pskowski in the El Paso Times, whose report was widely circulated.
Border Patrol agents on horseback cracking whips and charging into crowds of Haitian asylum seekers in Texas, shouting at them to go back to Mexico — strong reporting from @psskow on the situation in Del Rio/Ciudad Acuña https://t.co/ZVeS6j3gnM
— Ryan Devereaux (@rdevro) September 19, 2021
Of course, as anyone with eyeballs can see, those are not whips. They’re horse reins. The additional fact that there isn’t a single photo of video of border patrol whipping anyone also wasn’t taken into consideration by anyone mindlessly spreading the bogus narrative.
But of course, countless other journos with followers in the combined tens of millions decided to uncritically repeat the lie to their followers.
This is beyond repulsive. Are these images from 2021 or 1851?? https://t.co/sZv1c0aRWG
— Joy-Ann (Pro-Democracy) Reid 😷 (@JoyAnnReid) September 20, 2021
Can someone please tell me that I didn’t just read border control was on horseback and gathering Hatian refugees…. BY USING WHIPS. Please tell me I didn’t just read that…what has happened to humanity? My God.
— Malynda Hale (@MalyndaHale) September 20, 2021
Um … why are U.S. Border agents using whips on Haitians? https://t.co/dM62ZAY3aa pic.twitter.com/6zrVyn1kRs
— Jemele Hill (@jemelehill) September 20, 2021
From @elpasotimes: As the Haitians tried to climb onto the U.S. side of the river Sunday afternoon, a border agent shouted: "Let's go! Get out now! Back to Mexico!"
The agent swung his whip menacingly, charging his horse toward the men in the river.https://t.co/DejaoSQKwI
— Yamiche Alcindor (@Yamiche) September 20, 2021
Of note, a study in 2017 found that journalists drink too much, have poor emotional control, and operate at a lower level than the average person.
While a conservative can reasonably expect his claim that the sky is blue to be fact checked, the fact checkers were again asleep at the wheel when it came to this claim, which spread like wildfire through social media unchallenged. No “misinformation warning” was attached to the easily debunked story as is attached to anything challenging the liberal narrative.
In fact, the story spread so far that Jen Psaki was asked about it during a briefing yesterday, again with the journo mistakenly (or maybe intentionally) calling the reins a whip. Psaki said the fictitious situation was “obviously horrific” and would be looked in to.
And then showing how disorganized the Biden administration is, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas later corrected the record, stating “To ensure control of the horse, long reins are used but we are going to investigate the facts to ensure that the situation is as we understand it to be and if it’s anything different, we will respond accordingly.” There of course isn’t anything to investigate further, but I suppose Mayorkas didn’t want it to appear that he was outright accusing Psaki and others of lying, even though he’s well aware they’re wrong.
That was yesterday – now today Mayorkas is attempting to align with the bogus dominant narrative he knows is false, and claimed to be “horrified” by the images of border patrol doing their job.
Matt Palumbo is the author of The Man Behind the Curtain: Inside the Secret Network of George Soros, Dumb and Dumber: How Cuomo and de Blasio Ruined New York, Debunk This: Shattering Liberal Lies, and Spygate
