In one of the more bizarre self-awareness fails ever, leftist activists and politicians have taken to Twitter to denounce conditions unaccompanied illegal-immigrant minors face at federal detention centers. They're contending that the photos involved reflect conditions existing now during President Donald Trump's administration.
There's one "little" problem: The photos involved are from a 2014 Arizona Republic story, i.e., they're from the Obama era. Even an item published Friday at the Washington Post uses two of those 2014 photos. It's a fake news feast.
This epic snafu's beginning isn't clear, but we do know that one of the gullible early adopters was former Baracxk Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau, who has since deleted the following Sunday afternoon tweet (HT Hot Air):
Favreau's tweet linked to a series of photos at AZcentral.com, the Arizona Republic's website. That site's URL clearly flags it as having been published on June 18, 2014:
Favreau's tweet was up long enough for other activists and politicians to pile on without giving the posted AZcentral.com date a second thought. Among the gullible (some links are to graphics, as the related tweets have been deleted):
- Women's March co-founder Linda Sarsour
- Former New York Daily News reporter, Black Lives Matter activist and racial poseur Shaun King
- Jake Silverstein, New York Times Magazine Editor in Chief
- Kate Hinds, editor at WNYC
- Actresses Rosanna Arquette and Mia Farrow
- Los Angeles Mayor and 2018 California gubernatorial candidate Antonio Villaraigosa
After deleting his tweet, Villaraigosa posted another one which contended that "The key issue is not when it started." That doesn't fly, given that he was nowhere to be found objecting "when it started."
The Twitter curators at Twitchy are calling this saga "the greatest self-own in Twitter history." Hot Air's John Sexton agrees, noting that "there are literally hundreds more who are still posting it today despite lots of people pointing out these photos are 4 years old."
But surely no one in the establishment press has published an article containing one of the Arizona Republic's 2014 photos without clearly identifying its origin date, right? Wrong. The Washington Post published an item about the government's alleged inability to determine the whereabouts of unaccompanied minors, and used two of those photos. One is Mia Farrow's retweet of the photo seen above; the other is posted as the tease photo in a Post video at the top of the article, which is the same as the second photo in AZcentral.com's 10-photo series:
Post reporter Amy B. Wang gave readers no indication that these photos are from 2014 — which is odd, because her bio at the end of the article says that she "joined The Post in 2016 after seven years with the ... (we're not making this up) Arizona Republic."
Those hoping there might an end to all of this nonsense will not be encouraged by the following "2018 photo" posted by "a social media news company" of a bus whose seats are all designed to carry infants and toddlers:
This photo is really from April 2016.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
