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The NY Times Blames You for Shoplifting

Brad Slager
Brad Slager  |  Dec 04, 2023
The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Townhall.com.

12.04.23

Anti-Social Media – DISNEY CORPORATION

It has been a couple of dramatic weeks on Xitter. Following the fraudulent exposé by Media Matters, several advertisers have fled the platform, including Disney. The entertainment company declared it was pulling all of its advertising as a result of Elon Musk having made controversial comments as well as the contrived claim its ads were showing up with some hate speech posts.

But now, The Wall Street Journal has a report that states Disney seems just fine with advertising on another social media platform where it appears alongside far more egregious content. Highly sexualized videos and other content affiliated with children would include advertising from Disney and other prominent corporations.

DNC PR Firm – NBC NEWS

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  • The game of being accountable for the comments made by others continues.

It is apparent that the change from Chuck Todd to Kristen Welker on "Meet the Press" has led to little change. Welker had on Governor Ron DeSantis and she spent the bulk of the time trying to bait him into a feud with Trump. Yes, this was over Trump's use of the word "vermin," and continued the narrative that this was Hitlerian language. (As we have covered, they try to label Trump as a fascist for the degrading way he was opposing fascists.)

Welker saw a need to badger DeSantis on this issue, six times pressing DeSantis on this stupid talking point. It took the governor acting like an adult to explain it to her like she's a child:

What I don't do is play the media's game, where I'm asked to referee other people. He's responsible for his words. He's responsible for his conduct. I'm responsible for mine.  

Democratic Custodial Services – WASHINGTON POST

  • The issue of human feces on the streets that has been going on for years is not an issue.

In one of the highlights from the Ron DeSantis-Gavin Newsom debate was when DeSantis held up a printout of the infamous San Francisco graphic of human waste, in which people plot the locations where they encounter fecal matter deposited on the sidewalks due to the rampant problem of homelessness and drug abuse in that city. Well, we have the Washington Post's most elevated mind on the case to deliver corrective measures.

Yes – Philip Bump has fact-checked "The Poop Map."

Bump is here to inform you that the city should not be covered in all brown like it is because the markers are actually larger than the size of the crap itself! Also, it is misrepresentative, because it shows the indicators over a long period of time!

If we take the Open The Books data and plot it ourselves (using the free and endlessly useful QGIS tool), we get the map below. You’ll notice an important bit of data that DeSantis didn’t mention: it shows human waste reported from 2011 to 2019 — a span of nine years.

Okay, Philip: If this map represents the crap-filled locations over that timeframe, it means this has been an ongoing issue in that town that has gone unaddressed for nearly a decade. That is NOT helping Gavin Newsom's cause, just to help you out here.

Body Checking the Fact-Checkers – POLITIFACT

  • So…he's a "performer," not a crisis actor?

PolitiFact attempts to dissuade people from calling a social media influencer from Gaza a "crisis actor." Its fact check declares that a composite image of Saleh Aljafarawi in various characters, such as a doctor, a war correspondent, and even a Hamas freedom fighter, is taken out of context. Most of these images, we have it explained, are from his social media account where he plays these roles or even appears in music videos.

What PolitiFact fails to explain is why, given his curated content, we should today believe his posts where he claims to be recording carnage and other atrocities…?

Prose & Contradiction – THE NEW YORK TIMES

Last week, we covered a feature from CNN that declared the shoplifting scourge in the country could basically be blamed on those on the right – who noticed there was a scourge of shoplifting. Of course, professors were interviewed who explained away the criminality and instead highlighted the issue of people expecting law enforcement and justice to play a role.

Now, The New York Times wants to join in. It begins by stipulating this is NOT a nationwide problem – just one taking place in select cities. Those would be specifically blue cities, but this is a detail that is not dared to be mentioned. 

The paper then goes on to manipulate reality; if the largest cities are eliminated from the data, shoplifting actually goes down! That's…convenient. It also wants to blame the spread of this narrative on the stores:

Retailers have an interest in spreading the shoplifting narrative because it can suggest that disappointing profits are beyond their control.

Then – as is often the case in the press these days – it runs into the small problem that vexes many a journalist – reality. The Times, after delivering all of those qualifiers, has to get around to admitting the truth, after all:

Overall, shoplifting incidents were 16 percent higher in the first half of 2023 than the first half of 2019. 

Democratic Custodial Services – THE ATLANTIC

In a similar approach as The Times, Annie Lowrey has a timely piece on inflation, just as it is being learned the Democrats are moving away from using the term "Bidenomics." You know, because it ends up attaching Biden's name to the crap-ass economy. Now, Ms. Lowrey attempts to address the real issue behind the problem of inflation. See, we are all to blame because we keep buying the items that are going up in value – such as food, gasoline, and essentials.

Yes – seriously. You have every reason in the world to completely skip this entry just on the headline and subheader alone:

INFLATION IS YOUR FAULT – If people are so mad about high prices, why do they keep buying so many expensive things?

"Riffed from the Headlines" is Townhall's daily VIP feature with coverage of the deeply flawed aspects of journalism in the nation, where Brad Slager looks to bring accountability to the mishaps, malaprops, misdeeds, manipulations, malpractice, and manufactured narratives in mainstream media.