And the mainstream media wonders why Americans hate them so much. The media went into a tizzy over a speech Attorney General Jeff Sessions gave to border patrol agents on Tuesday. The Wall Street Journal published an article with these two paragraphs:
In remarks Tuesday to Border Patrol agents at the US-Mexico Border in Nogales, Ariz., Mr. Sessions spoke in stark terms about the threat he said illegal immigration posed.
“We mean international criminal organizations that turn cities and suburbs into warzones, that rape and kill innocent citizens,” Mr. Sessions said, according to the text of his prepared remarks. “It is here, on this sliver of land, where we first take our stand against this filth.”
That’s NOT what he said.
Distortion
But the WSJ left out an extremely important detail from Sessions’ prepared remarks, which the Department of Justice published on its website (emphasis mine):
Here, along our nation’s southwest border, is ground zero in this fight. Here, under the Arizona sun, ranchers work the land to make an honest living, and law-abiding citizens seek to provide for their families.
But it is also here, along this border, that transnational gangs like MS-13 and international cartels flood our country with drugs and leave death and violence in their wake. And it is here that criminal aliens and the coyotes and the document-forgers seek to overthrow our system of lawful immigration.
Let’s stop here for a minute. When we talk about MS-13 and the cartels, what do we mean? We mean criminal organizations that turn cities and suburbs into warzones, that rape and kill innocent citizens and who profit by smuggling poison and other human beings across our borders. Depravity and violence are their calling cards, including brutal machete attacks and beheadings.
It is here, on this sliver of land, where we first take our stand against this filth.
So when Sessions mentioned filth in his prepared remarks, he specifically meant the criminal organizations that leak into our land.
Question is, why would WSJ do this? Did they look at the prepared remarks? I’m going to say yes because when Sessions delivered his speech, he omitted the word filth as T. Becket Adams at The Washington Examiner pointed out:
Here is what the attorney general told border agents Tuesday:
“[A]long this border … transnational gangs like MS-13 and international cartels flood our country with drugs and leave death and violence in their wake. And it is here that criminal aliens and the coyotes and the document-forgers seek to overthrow our system of lawful immigration,” he said.
Sessions added, “Let’s stop here for a moment. When we talk about MS-13 and the cartels, what do we mean? We mean international criminal organizations that turn cities and suburbs into war-zones, that rape and kill innocent citizens and who profit by smuggling poison and other human beings across our borders. Depravity and violence are their calling cards, including brutal machete attacks and beheadings.”
He concluded with this line: “It is here, on this sliver of land, on this border, where we first take our stand.”
Media Reaction
The mainstream media went crazy over this, with top journalists at major outlets tweeting about it.
Filth. He described illegal immigrants as "filth."
Whatever your views on immigration that's f**king embarrassing for a US official to say. https://t.co/sl5x5uLObK— Daniel W. Drezner (@dandrezner) April 11, 2017
In case anyone was wondering how Sessions really feels about undocumented immigrants: "filth" https://t.co/AYFqG1qpi2
— Molly O'Toole (@mollymotoole) April 11, 2017
Thing is, when Mashable’s Chris Taylor, WSJ’s David Enrich, and MSNBC’s Kyle Griffin tweeted about it, they included the remarks that proved Sessions meant criminal organizations!
Wow. https://t.co/7GXBmHtOB0 pic.twitter.com/Vl5lE3uyUi
— David Enrich (@davidenrich) April 11, 2017
The Attorney General of the United States just called Mexican immigrants "filth." But by all means, keep being outraged about United. https://t.co/9ipxg5gvs5
— Chris Taylor (@FutureBoy) April 11, 2017
In prepared remarks, Sessions called undocumented immigrants 'filth'
He skipped the word when delivering his speech https://t.co/AnzPs9mMVm pic.twitter.com/hfGlJGXfxz
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) April 11, 2017
Retractions
The Washington Post‘s Daniel Drezner issued an apology to Sessions this morning. But of course he started off the article by reminding the readers how much he does not like Sessions.
Reading Sessions' prepared remarks I think I over-interpreted his language. Apologies for the quick Twitter trigger. https://t.co/GJ48yIoLnI pic.twitter.com/0asvGCr2vj
— Daniel W. Drezner (@dandrezner) April 11, 2017
Unfortunately, that tweet barely received attention unlike his original tweet.
The others have not issued any sort of apology.
The Wall Street Journal did update its article:
“We mean international criminal organizations that turn cities and suburbs into warzones, that rape and kill innocent civilians,” Mr. Sessions said in his delivered remarks, referring to gangs run by illegal immigrants. “It is here, on this sliver of land, on this border, where we first take our stand.”
The passage had drawn attention because the prepared remarks released by the Justice Department had included the phrase “take our stand against this filth.” But Mr. Sessions deviated from his prepared remarks and didn’t say “filth” as he delivered his speech.
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Comments
Define “Top Journalists.”
You can tell them by their white facepaint, red noses, and big floppy shoes. And the boutonniere that shoots water.
Isn’t that Lizzie Warren?????
Top Journalists = Democrat stooges.
The ones Obama loves.
WSJ used to be my go-to newspaper…the only one that I have delivered. I’ve really been turned off , the past few months their true colors are showing.
Same.
I don’t care what he said, as long as he doesn’t apologize when the Virtue Signal Squad goes into its usual hysteria.
Say what you mean and act on it, no matter what your opponents pretend to misunderstand.
That would be clarion call of “the Trump era”. That all by itself would defeat the corrosive decline forced on us all by the Progressives.
Prime example as to how WSJ twists the news to their ‘yellow journalism’ viewpoint. I don’t think from here forward I can trust any article written in the WSJ. Hope they go bankrupt!!!
Sessions didn’t call illegals “filth”, he called the media filth. And I concur!
No, he didn’t say that either, that I know of, but it doesn’t matter because it is the media itself that proved to be the biggest filth this nation is suffering from. If even the WSJ is stooping to the level of the other, already discredited journals, there is no one else one can trust, with rare exceptions such as the Legal Insurrection site.
Professor Drezner is a professor and he has a gig at WaPo. That makes him both academic and a journalist. I point this out as I would hope that a journalist would verify, check sources, and be some circumspect. Ditto a professor.
When a professor or a journalist is wrong, he/she should apologize without further impugning the person he wronged.
Prof. Drezner didn’t check the original source for Mr. Sessions’ comments prior to tweeting — the prepared remarks were available, but he chose to react to a tweet. Okay, I get it, but I would hope a professor/journalist would be better than that.
And in his apology, he can apologize without further telling us how awful he thinks Mr. Sessions is. We get that he doesn’t like the man, save it for another article. Otherwise the apology is just another cudgel.
Partisans will like that, and the comments at WaPo make that clear. But it’s not a good look for either a journalist or a professor.
I think he may be setting them up for embarrassing retractions, making them gun shy about editing comments.
With the un-professional media bozos we have, no set-up is required.
They set themselves up to take the fall.
“Remember folks, anytime you can serve a heaping, big meal of hot crow to a Leftist, then that’s a very good thing!” – MAGA Stewart
Liberals using the Candy Crowley Special again.
Bald faced lie in public when everybody is listening.
Quietly ‘apologize’ in a manner you KNOW is not going to get wide distribution.
The lie stands as ‘truth’.
They (the media) are nothing but part of the democratic plan which is the “resist” movement. They will do any thing and break any rule or law to destroy Trump and the Trump administration.
They are not playing games with this they want blood. They want to shut down and conservative ideas or speech.
Deny, Dispute, Destroy
“The McClatchy Company is a publicly traded American publishing company based in Sacramento, California. It operates 29 daily newspapers in 14 states and has an average weekday circulation of 1.6 million and Sunday circulation of 2.4 million. ”
Stock price March 18th 2005 = $748 a share
Stock price today = $10.38 a share
Say what? And to think that in most of their daily newspapers there is a business section that pontificates on businesses in their local area.
McClatchy did a 1 for 10 reverse split last June, so the March, 2005 price should be divided by 10 for an apples-to-apples comparison to the current price. Still horrible performance reflecting the state of the publishing industry.
Yeah, I know. What is really FUN is they did the reverse 10-1 split to keep from being delisted from the NYC. Now remember this is the main paper in Sacramento and Sacramento is the capital of Democratland.
I love it!
Wouldn’t it be the current stock price that needs to be divided by 10 (or the 2005 price multiplied by 10) to make it an apples-to-apples comparison?
After a reverse 10:1 split, wouldn’t each 2017 share equal ten 2005 shares?
So if you had 10 shares in 2005, they were worth a total of $7,480. After the reverse split, the ten shares would now be only one share – and worth $10.38 today (or less than $1.04 for each of your 2005 shares).
You’ve got it Paul!
That means the McClatchy Company has LOST 99% of its value for its “owners.”
(Course, we know their real owners are the Democrat Party.
Snark.)
So irritating!! The WaPo and the hypocritical Liberal Left that read it are so removed from the very real impact these gangs have on people. If they really cared for the immigrant population the way they pretend to they would celebrate in the streets over ANY news about curtailing criminal action by the drug cartels. Why??? Because in these border towns most of the victims are other immigrants. My nephew is a cop in Tuscon and has worked in some of the toughest neighborhoods. He says the majority of the rapes, home invasions, robberies etc committed by illegals (that is, gang members) are against other illegals. They prey on their own first.
Hypocrites!
That is definitely one of the more disgusting and sleazy of the recent smears used against Trump’s administration! Just leaving small but VERY important parts out in order to make it seem like he said something offensive, very slimy!
This is much the same as when Trump pointed out all the criminals streaming unrestrained over the border among all the decent hard-working people, and the reporters claimed he’d said all Mexicans were rapists or something.
It seems to me, though, that Sessions set this up deliberately; by putting “filth” in the prepared comments but not delivering them he snookered them into beclowning themselves, without any reason to retract or apologise or rephrase a single word.