PolitiFact, not known of late for being anything more than a Democrat-aligned lapdog that defends leftists while attacking conservatives and Republicans, is back to using cherry-picked revisionist sources in a coming-to-the-rescue moment for Stacey Abrams in her second attempt to become the governor of Georgia.
The PolitiFact cover for Abrams comes as her claims — that the state GOP's 2021 election integrity legislation amounted to Jim Crow 2.0 and would suppress voters in the Peach State — have completely fallen apart. Overall turnout in Georgia's 2022 Democrat primary was almost 30 percent higher than it was the last time around in 2018. Early voting among Republicans and Democrats was some 200 percent higher.
At the time the bill to secure Georgia elections was making its way through the state legislature and signed into law by GOP Governor Brian Kemp, Abrams was one in a chorus of Democrats calling for the state of Georgia to be punished. Her comments in 2021 were fresh in the minds of Georgians when she said amid the 2022 primary that her state is "the worst" to live in.
Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr pointed out that Abrams has a track record of bashing the state she wants to lead.
Our state’s No.1 ranking for business has transformed hundreds of thousands of Georgians’ lives.
— Chris Carr (@ChrisCarr_Ga) May 23, 2022
Just like when she supported the #MLB boycott, Stacey Abrams’ reckless & condescending comments continue to harm the state she claims to want to govern.#gapol https://t.co/F1D0pfizn5
And then the biased Democrat henchmen at PolitiFact got to work trying to defend Abrams and rewrite the history of her response to the election integrity law by declaring that Carr's tweet about Abrams supporting the MLB decision to pull the 2021 All-Star Game was "false."
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"No, Stacey Abrams didn't support the All-Star game boycott of Atlanta," the PolitiFact writer proclaimed. Unsurprisingly, the author of the supposedly independent fact-check followed up his tweet with the article by thanking a liberal Substack author "for the hat tip on this one."
My latest @PolitiFact: No, Stacey Abrams didn’t support the baseball All-Star game boycott of Atlanta, despite what a leading Georgia Republican said.https://t.co/KdJoerRA6x pic.twitter.com/PUxBoD8n1K
— Louis Jacobson (@loujacobson) May 24, 2022
In its attempt to rewrite history, the PolitiFact story cites to, among other sources, "an op-ed in USA Today" authored by Stacey Abrams on March 31, 2021 — just days after Governor Kemp signed the election integrity bill into law. But there's a problem — that op-ed was stealth-edited nearly a week later, after Major League Baseball made the decision to move the All-Star Game out of Georgia, to significantly alter Abrams' on-the-record position regarding boycotts being called for by Democrats and heeded by woke corporations.
Not over the fact that Stacey Abrams published an op-Ed about the Georgia law saying “boycotts work,” and she wouldn’t blame anyone for boycotting..
— Matt Whitlock (@mattdizwhitlock) April 24, 2021
Then AFTER the MLB move, STEALTH EDITED the op-Ed with stronger language opposing boycotts, and media have used it to defend her. https://t.co/A284wksh2c
When USA Today got caught allowing a Abrams to tone down her support for boycotts, they scrambled to respond but only then added an editor's note that merely declared the piece was changed — but didn't say how.
Here's a key portion of the original iteration of Abrams' op-ed as it was first published (archived here):
The impassioned response to the racist, classist bill that is now the law of Georgia is to boycott in order to achieve change. Events hosted by major league baseball, world class soccer, college sports and dozens of Hollywood films hang in the balance. At the same time, activists urge Georgians to swear off of hometown products to express our outrage. Until we hear clear, unequivocal statements that show Georgia-based companies get what’s at stake, I can’t argue with an individual’s choice to opt for their competition
And here's what Abrams' position was stealth-edited to be after Major League Baseball had made its decision to boycott Georgia over its election security law and move the All-Star Game to Colorado:
The impassioned (and understandable) response to the racist, classist bill that is now the law of Georgia is to boycott in order to achieve change. Events that can bring millions of dollars to struggling families hang in the balance. Major League Baseball pulled both its All-Star Game and its draft from Georgia, which could cost our state nearly $100 million in lost revenue.
[...]
I have no doubt that voters of color, particularly Black voters, are willing to endure the hardships of boycotts. But such monetary loss is unlikely to affect the stubborn, frightened Republicans who see voter suppression as their only way to win. Money isn’t quite as seductive as political power to these putative leaders.
Instead of a boycott, I strongly urge other events and productions to do business in Georgia and speak out against our law and similar proposals in other states.
Abrams' stealth-edit as seen above — along with other changes to her op-ed — is a clear attempt to cover her tracks and moderate her position on companies boycotting Georgia based on the fear-mongering claims she made after woke organizations heeded her — and other Democrats' — calls. She went from being unable to argue against boycotts of Georgia and its companies to asking for people to stay in Georgia and speak out against the election integrity measure.
The edit also meant that by the time Republicans were rightfully calling out Abrams for her record of speaking out against the people of Georgia and their interests ahead of November's general election rematch between her and incumbent Governor Brian Kemp, PolitiFact had the supposed ammo it needed to rule conservative criticisms false. The blatant memory-holing of Abrams' position is part and parcel for the alliance between Democrats, mainstream media, and supposed arbiters of truth such as PolitiFact. But it doesn't make their efforts to change "truth" to be whatever is most politically beneficial for Democrats any less stunning.
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