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Cufflatinx

By now, everyone has seen the pictures of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez being, kind of, arrested.


If you are politically-focused, you also know she wasn't handcuffed, though she wanted to give that impression.


Let's touch on two things about her little grade school skit.


Death By a Thousand Clicks

First, while you are well-informed and realize she was never handcuffed, there are lots of people who aren't as focused on politics, especially outside of presidential elections.


Regardless, we all get a lot of our "feel" for social and political subjects very casually.


Much of it comes from the simple daily act of accessing the internet. As you launch your browser, a startup page appears. Sometimes, you are seduced by the clickbait and chase a rabbit or two. Sometimes, you go directly to whatever it was you were intending to do in the first place. Either way, you catch glimpses of pictures and story headlines in the process. Similarly when you log onto social media.


Those glimpses color your understanding of many things - especially things you don't take time to investigate and understand. For example, most of my (very limited) understanding of the Kardashians is what I accidentally see as I am navigating elsewhere. Because (a) I don't care about the Kardashians and (b) I don't have other sources of information about them, I don't do a good job of challenging the images I get from the headlines and pics.


That's not fair to Kim and the others (whatever their names are), because the pictures and headlines are undoubtedly inaccurate. And it is especially bad (and biased) in the political sphere.


Which brings us back to Alexandria, our 21st century Houdini. When she was finally led away from her illegal, traffic-blocking protest, she put her hands behind her back to make it look like she was in handcuffs, which she never was. But, Disney-owned ABC News posted a picture of her from the front that looked like police had cuffed her. And that was the only picture they posted with the headline of her being arrested.


Is that a big deal? Not in isolation. But, they knew that was an image AOC was trying to portray, and they knew (or easily should have known) it was false. ABC is supposed to be one of our few objective news sources. They had a duty to post a picture that was not furthering a false narrative. Closer to propaganda than journalism, maybe ABC News should change its name to AOC News.


The casual voter - the one who unfortunately swings elections - thinks a Congressperson was led away in shackles. They don't focus on it, but they come away with the impression AOC was persecuted (ridiculous), and that something very serious happened (not so much).


In many ways, this internet news-feed bias is more of a problem than cable news. First, most casual voters don't watch cable news, but everyone uses the internet. Second, while a few of CNN's (few) viewers think it is impartial, everyone with a brain knows they will be force-fed the party line when they turn on the networks. But, we don't have our conscious bias filters in place when we are absorbing the internet's semi-subliminal messages.


Lying: AOC's Idea of Best Practice

Then there is the fact that AOC lied. The act of pretending to be handcuffed was, let's say, "disingenuous."


But, after she was caught, she outright lied. She claimed she put her hands behind her back, not to give the impression she was cuffed, but because it was "best practice" when you are detained by police. It was one of the zillions of times Leftists retro-fit an explanation when they get caught doing something stupid (or worse). Said another way, she made it up. One of the reasons we know she made it up is because it's wrong.


ProTip: if you are ever confronted by police, do NOT unilaterally put your hands behind your back and then abruptly pull your right arm out from behind, as AOC did. If you do that and get shot, it won't be because of the color of your skin.


How Is This News?

OK. So, is it unusual the media played along with her charade and posted a biased picture and a biased headline? Not at all. Far from it. In fact, you could go to your startup page right now and find at least 2-3 more examples of Leftist bias.


Is it shocking that a politician made up some crap after-the-fact to cover for themselves? Not at all. Happens everyday.


But, here's the thing. We can't keep yawning about our media being utterly biased and our politicians lying with impunity.* Each instance is yet another nail in our American coffin. Soon we will be so boxed in that even the real Houdini would not be able to escape.



* just to (as usual) state the obvious, the leftist media bias is a primary reason the left lies. They know they can basically get away with it.

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