A million Pinocchios for Glenn Kessler

Most of what happened to me this weekend was truly depressing.

It started, I kid you not, with a blizzard. A genuine, 50 MPH winds/10 inches of snow blizzard.

Don’t believe me? My friend Scott Johnson wrote about it over at PowerLine.

Advertisement

Then I saw the tweets about Dylan Mulvaney becoming a brand ambassador for Bud Light, and I winced in pain. Not that I drink the swill, but it was one more chink in the armor and a direct attack on RealMen™.

Then I read about Adult Babies/Diaper Lovers, and I curled up into a ball and cried. I called my friend Senator Fetterman for doctor’s recommendations.

So imagine my glee when I saw that Twitter absolutely dunked on Glenn Kessler and fact-checked his ridiculous “fact check” on Alvin Bragg and George Soros.

It was a thing of glory, especially since it pissed him off royally.

Kessler was responding to Twitter’s reaction to his “fact check” which tried to dispute the fact that George Soros helped get Alvin Bragg elected. He based his assertion on the thinnest of reeds: that Soros did not directly contribute to Bragg’s campaign. Sure, Soros gave to a group that got him elected, but that doesn’t count.

Leftists on Twitter have tried to make any reference to Soros as proof of antisemitism, which is absurd on so many levels. No liberal ever claimed that Sheldon Adelson is off limits to criticism due to his religion, and he’s a lot more Jewish than Soros. It is calumny. Soros is the largest contributor to Leftist causes and is not immune to criticism.

Advertisement

From the moment it appeared that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg would indict Trump after hearing evidence of his role in hush-money payments to an adult-film star, he has suggested that Bragg is operating at the direction of liberal billionaire George Soros — who he claimed had given more than $1 million to Bragg.

The theme has been picked up by other Republicans, with many House members in tweets calling Bragg “Soros-backed” or “Soros-funded” or even “Soros DA.” Trump’s presumed main rival for the GOP presidential nomination, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, referred to “Soros-backed Manhattan District Attorney” in his statement saying he would refuse an extradition request. Fox News, which has long focused on Soros’s support for left-wing causes, has repeatedly mentioned Soros’s name in its coverage.

But the intense focus on Soros is misplaced. Soros never directly funded Bragg, but instead contributed to a group that supported Bragg and other liberal candidates seeking to be prosecutors.

Moreover, the repeated mention of Soros plays into antisemitic conspiracy theories that Soros, a Hungarian American Holocaust survivor, is a wealthy puppet-master who works behind the scenes to manipulate elections and further his goals. The Anti-Defamation League found in 2018 that Soros figures in a significant number of antisemitic tweets.

The Trump campaign defended Trump’s focus on Soros. “It’s not antisemitic to point out Soros funded/supported Bragg,” said spokesman Steven Cheung. “What world are you living in?”

Advertisement

Kessler in a nutshell: Soros didn’t give Bragg money directly and saying anything bad about Soros is antisemitic. Case closed.

OK, now let’s look at the genuine facts, which were helpfully pointed out in the Twitter “community notes” which users can append and vote up or down on after tweets.

In an article claiming to separate Bragg from Soros even CNBC had to admit the following facts:

Most of the criticism of Bragg appears to stem from support, and later political pressure, he received from the racial justice group Color of Change, which tries to influence government and corporate policy around the country. Soros donated $1 million to the Color of Change PAC in 2021. The Soros-funded Open Society Policy Center also piled $7 million into the group’s separate 501(c)(4) arm that year.

Yet, those familiar with the contributions said that the money the billionaire and his organization gave to Color of Change was not earmarked to back Bragg’s campaign, or intended to be used in an effort to pressure the DA.

Soros’ $1 million check to the Color of Change PAC, the largest individual donation it received in the 2022 election cycle, came days after it endorsed Bragg for district attorney and pledged more than $1 million in spending to support his candidacy, according to records.

A Color of Change official, who declined to be named to speak openly about private matters, told CNBC that the group ended up spending around $500,000 to back Bragg.

Advertisement

Sooooo… Color of Change announces they will spend a million dollars to support Bragg. Then Soros gives a million dollars to the group.

Zero connection between Soros and Bragg. Not a bit.

Not even a teensy tiny little bit, you antisemite.

Twitter didn’t buy it, and Kessler was driven totally nuts by the community note. It was hilarious.

Who cares what the precise number is that Color of Change PAC spent to get Bragg elected? They promised to spend $1 million, then Soros gives them $1 million, but they decided they didn’t need to spend quite that much on Bragg so they destroyed other cities with that extra money.

Kessler apparently thinks this is a killer argument. Killer to any credibility he had left, but not to anybody seeing the direct connection between Soros money and Bragg’s election.

Kessler just thinks it is an argument he can win because he is the Pinocchio guy, and the community on Twitter is just a bunch of rubes who know how to read and discern the truth, and Kessler cares nothing about the truth.

I have little doubt that Bragg didn’t get or need Soros’ ORDERS to go full speed ahead with destroying America; Soros chose to back him due to his commitment to the cause, not because he was for sale. Soros just helped put this America hater in office by funneling hundreds of thousands of dollars into his campaign.

Ironically, Bragg’s indictment of Trump is only a small part of why he is such a bad thing for the country. He is on a mission to turn New York into a city that Snake Plissken might fear to tread, undoing decades of work by better men than he to clean our greatest city up.

Advertisement
Snake Plissken from the movie Escape from New York

It’s not a surprise that Kessler would write something so incredibly dishonest; that is his job at the Washington Post, after all.

But it is something of a mystery why he would be so committed to writing this particular dishonest “fact check.” Everybody knows that Soros is on a mission to enable violent criminals and that Alvin Bragg is one of his favorite prosecutors. This was a slam dunk for people to take potshots at Kessler. Why bother wading into this controversy when it is a sure loser?

Shills gotta shill, I guess.

Join the conversation as a VIP Member

Trending on HotAir Videos

Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement