Elected Officials who behave as Brian Babin has are unfit for office and should immediately resign. If he doesn’t resign, Congress should expel him.
Leading up to the election, many Texas Republicans spent most of their time on social media talking about how the election was stolen, there was mass fraud, Joe Biden is a communist, and Democrats are ruining America. He gassed up Trump’s base, who we have all known to be violent and delusional. This directly led to a violent attempt to overthrow the American government we saw last week. Brian Babin was one of those Republicans.
[mepr-hide] https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); [/mepr-hide]Brian Babin was one of the 17 Texas Republicans who objected to certifying the election, even though there was no proof. He is also one of the six Texas Republicans who have continues to spread baseless conspiracy theories and hate, since the failed coup. Especially the lie that the left is violent, Democratic leaders cheered on violence, and Democrats are now hypocrites for being angry that a violent mob stormed the capitol building.
So, let’s talk about this lie.
This is what Brian Babin posted last night.
He tweeted, “If you aren’t convinced of the media’s hypocrisy – read this.”
“What about the looted/burned businesses, cities destroyed, & innocent ppl beaten/killed by gar-left extremists in 2020?”
Then he linked an article by The Federalist titled, “28 Times Media And Democrats Excused Violence By Left-Wing Activists.”
If it sounds like bullshit, it usually is, but let’s take a closer look.
The Federalist.
According to Media Bias Fact Checker: “The Federalist a borderline Questionable and far-Right Biased based on story selection and editorial positions that always favor the right. We also rate them Mixed for factual reporting due to the promotion of pseudoscience and several failed fact checks.”
[mepr-hide] https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); [/mepr-hide]Center for Countering Digital Hate called The Federalist “racist” and said it spread fake news.
The Media Bias Chart, last updated in 2020 calls identifies The Federalist as hyper-partisan and somewhat unreliable.
This is what Brian Babin shared, labeled with his outrage over hypocrisy and leftist violence, both of which did not exist.
What did this article in the Federalist lie about?
First and foremost, they shared the tweet of a screenshot from the TV show “Designated Survivor,” saying it was Democrat violence.
This was a long-ago claim debunked by NPR, Washington Post, and Politifact. As an elected official who works in D.C., Brian Babin should have known that D.C wasn’t burned to the ground.
Then they get into their list, every single one a lie.
- Kamala Harris urges followers to cover rioters’ bail.
Lie. On June first, she tweeted to her followers for donations to a bail fund of protesters. This wasn’t about riots or protests, it was about cash bails. The donations she asked for were to an organization, MFF, which is working to end cash bails.
“MFF believes that every individual who has been arrested by the police is innocent until proven guilty, and if a judge deems them eligible for bail, they should not have to wait in jail simply because they don’t have the same income or resources as others with more privilege,” according to MFF director.
[mepr-hide] https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); [/mepr-hide]2. Chris Cumo: Who said protests are supposed to be peaceful?
Chris Cumo did say that, then he said, “Police are the ones who are required to be peaceful, to de-escalate, to remain calm. They are in fact trained to do exactly that. When one kneels on someone’s neck for a long time and other police don’t stop obvious deadliness, that’s the problem.”
The Federalist clipped the video to make it look nefarious, when it was not.
3. MSNBC Reporter Describes Fiery Scene ‘Mostly A Protest’
This was from May 28th in Minneapolis, when the George Floyd uprising first started. Everyone knows that was the first week and when riots happened. However, after that first week, almost all protests around the country were peaceful. During that first week in Minneapolis, thousands of people had taken to the streets every day for protest.
If there are 2,000 people out there and 1,950 of them are peacefully protesting, while 50 are causing trouble, it would be mostly a protest. The Federalists tried to insinuate otherwise.
4. CNN Labels Burning Protest ‘Fiery But Mostly Peaceful’
This is the same thing. Except in Kenosha. I have a friend, who is also a live streamer, and was a witness on the ground during that time. Mostly, the protests were peaceful. Two businesses were set on fire, which mainstream media found necessary to do their newscasts in front of. My friend also witnessed disturbing rights violations from the police during those nights.
It’s lies that come from the Federalist and other far-right media coverage of Kenosha, which encouraged Kyle Rittenhouse to drive across state lines and murder multiple people.
[mepr-hide] https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); [/mepr-hide]5. Democratic National Convention Refuses To Condemn Riots
What riots? Who knows, but this is the same as saying, “Muslims who refuse to condemn terrorist attacks.”
Or in 2021, right-wing media refuses to condemn the violent insurrection by right-wing extremists.
6. Pulitzer Prize-Winning New York Times Writer: Destroying Property Isn’t Violence
Watch the video. Nikole Hannah-Jones spoke about how Trump and right-wing media were equating the murder of George Floyd to the theft of property. She called it immoral. She’s right. One phrase that we heard over and over again in 2020, “People’s lives matter more than property.”
Some on the right still don’t get it.
7. Government-Funded PBS Reporter Denies Anarchists Are ‘Anarchists’
What she said was there was no proof that the people in Minneapolis during the first week of the George Floyd uprising were anarchists. And she was right, there wasn’t any proof. The Federalist combated this with the proof being someone at one of the protests which had thousands of people, burned an American flag. Still…not proof.
8. CNN’s Don Lemon Compares Leftist Riots to the Boston Tea Party
Still, the Federalists’ only examples were from the first week of the George Floy uprising.
Don Lemon was also right, the Boston Tea Party was a riot. The right thinks of the Boston Tea Party as a favorable event in history, because of taxes. Even back then, the Governor of Massachusetts called it a high handed riot.
9. CNN’s Chris Cillizza Complains About the Term ‘Riot’
Chris Cillizza wrote an article called, “Protest or Riot? It Makes A BIG Difference.” He spoke about how Trump and his allies were calling peaceful protests riots, again and again. As the Federalist did. When groups of people show up at a location, hold signs, chant, and then all go home, that’s a protest. Yet, all year the right called those riots.
[mepr-hide] https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); [/mepr-hide]The Federalist took Cillizza’s words, further exasperating how protests were riots and semantics don’t matter.
10. New York Times Columnist Finds Portland Anarchists In Piece Titled, ‘Help Me Find Trump’s ‘Anarchists’ In Portland’
This was about Trump calling hundreds of people anarchists, while the NYT columnist said, there may be a few people in the large group who believe in the anarchist ideology, but they don’t express the whole.
And… This is the truth and has nothing to do with the media “excusing or endorsing leftist violence, ” as the Federalist insinuates.
11. MSNBS’s Joy Reid: BLM Riots Are Really Just Undercover White Nationalists Causing Trouble
This is true, though. It has been proven. It was proven in Richmond, Minneapolis, and in California. So…. what’s the Federalists’ point?
13. NBC News Allegedly Instructed Staff to Avoid the Term ‘Riot’
Don’t call protests riots. This was a huge contributor to the rise in right-wing violence we saw in 2020. The far-right over and over again called peaceful protesters, “rioters,” which led to counter-protesters showing up at peaceful protests and committing acts of violence.
Y’all get the point.
The Federalist used 28 examples, nearly all of the flat out lies or clipped videos to insinuate something nefarious.
[mepr-hide] https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); [/mepr-hide]Then Brian Babin shared this article of fake news and angrily posted on Twitter about leftist violence and media hypocrisy. It’s irresponsible. Elected Officials who behave as Brian Babin has are unfit for office and should immediately resign. If he doesn’t resign, Congress should expel him.
TX-36 Brian Babin
202-225-1555
brian.babin@mail.house.gov
@RepBrianBabin
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