Thursday, March 28, 2024

Publisher twists the facts

Posted

In his latest editorial, “Facts trumped by crying babies,” the Echo publisher began by labeling as “factually flawed” the recent Time Magazine cover that showed Donald Trump looming over a crying toddler. The articles that followed in Time outlined the controversy over the Trump administration’s policy that has separated more than 2,000 children from their families at the U.S. border with Mexico. Most of these families are from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and other Central American countries.

The publisher claimed that since the child on the Time cover was never separated from her mother, the cover was an example of “fake news.” The cover has inspired outrage, he wrote, by the “Trump Derangement Syndrome crowd,” which “rarely” bothers to “examine the facts of any issue.” Fact: Time Magazine never claimed that the child was separated from her mother. If the publisher had bothered to examine the facts, he would have found a clear explanation of the child’s situation on page four of the magazine.

The publisher claimed that the parents whose children have been taken from them “have committed a crime by crossing into this country illegally.” Fact: Most of these families seek asylum from domestic abuse and/or gang violence. Seeking asylum from violence is not a crime; it is a human right.

The publisher’s rant diverged into a potpourri of subjects, from Stormy Daniels to Hillary Clinton’s emails (can’t miss that one). More of his claims:
--  “The voters have chosen to elect [Trump].” Fact: Voters nationwide chose Hillary Clinton over Trump by more than two million votes in 2016.
--  “[T]he anti-Trump media has (sic) fanned the flames of emotional unrest over ripping children from their mother’s (sic) arms.” Fact: It is Trump’s policy of separating families, and not media reporting, that has created this controversy.

The publisher’s most outrageous statement: Those he cleverly calls the “TDS crowd” don’t “care about compassion for immigrant children.” How dare he claim to know what millions across this county care about. Fact: According to polls by CBS, CNN, Reuters and others, two-thirds of Americans oppose Trump’s policy of separating immigrant families. Fact: The children stolen and still separated from their families have been scarred for life.

Fact: The New York Times reported that according to officials of multiple agencies involved, when the Trump administration devised its “no tolerance policy” to separate families at the border, “[t]here was no system set up beforehand to link families and no plan on how to bring them back together.” Where are the children and their families? This is a national tragedy.

On June 30 in Wenatchee, we joined millions of people across this country to express our grief and outrage at the national disgrace created by Donald Trump.This was our simple collective statement of fact: families belong together.

Susan and John Butruille
Leavenworth

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