The Media Research Center has its narrative, and that is to defend ICE no matter how many people it kills. A Jan. 25 post by Jorge Bonilla sought to justify ICE’s killing of Alex Prestti:
It has become increasingly evident that the Elitist Media have gone all in on the organized leftwing chaos currently underway in Minnesota, and have devoted themselves to shaping public perception accordingly as opposed to simply reporting the news. No other conclusion could reasonably be reached after a review of Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche’s appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press.
There were many dubious questions laced throughout the interview, but this was arguably the worst- whether the death of U.S. citizens is simply the price to pay for immigration enforcement:
[…]If ever you needed proof evident of a double standard in news media, this is it. One does not recall anyone, much less Kristen Welker of all people, asking anyone in the Biden administration whether the deaths of Laken Riley, Rachel Morin, Jocelyn Nungaray, et. al were the price that the administration was willing to pay to carry out their immigration policy. But, as we often point out: if it weren’t for double standards, there’d be none at all.
Btu Bonilla clearly has double standards as well, as his justification of Pretti’s death demonstrates. He went on to huff:”At this point there are many legitimate questions about the shooting, which Blanche made abundantly clear is under an ongoing federal investigation. Welker didn’t seem interested in asking any of those, instead choosing to gaslight and launch shaped narratives.” Sounds like Bonilla is talking about himself.
The next day, Mark Finkelstein whined that Joe Scarborough noted that many people described Pretti’s death as “an execution-style shooting”:
Joe, if you want to accuse ICE of the execution-style shooting of Alex Pretti, have the decency and guts to say so yourself, instead of putting it in the mouths of “many people.” The bare minimum that journalistic integrity required was to name names of some of those “many people.” But you failed to clear even that low bar. Shame on you.
Finkelstein — who was not shy about demonstrating his lack of shame — continued:
Note: The show opened with a clip of Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara boasting that, in contrast with ICE, in the last year his force had confiscated 900 weapons and arrested hundreds of violent offenders, “and we didn’t shoot anyone.”
Maybe so. Then again, the Minneapolis PD didn’t have to contend with mobs of protesters screaming, using cars to obstruct their operations, blowing whistles, trying to “de-arrest” people, or ICE Watch “rapid responders” tracking federal agents, their movements and their vehicles in an AirTable database called “MN ICE PLATES.”
Why did Finkelstein make a point of insisting that anyone who opposes ICE activities in Minneapolis is part of a “mob”? He didn’t explain.
Nicholas Fondadaro went off on a rant in his daily hate-watch of “The View”:
The mask fully came off during Monday’s edition of The View and exposed their true extremist face. Reacting to another ICE-involved shooting death in Minnesota, ABC News co-hosts declared that the law enforcement actions by Immigration and Customs Enforcement were the kind of thing America’s Founding Fathers wanted the Second Amendment used for. It was The View’s most direct incitement to violence to date.
[…]Earlier in the show, Haines seemed to plant the seeds to assert that guns were needed to stave off ICE violence.
Ignoring the riots overnight, and other attempts on their lives, Haines claimed the only ones being violent were the ICE agents and claimed they were trying to “win by shooting people”:
[…]Prior to talking about the gun what was present at the shooting of Alex Pretti, Goldberg seemed to claim that he didn’t have one at all. “They murdered a man. He is standing, he has his phone and he has a bottle of water. He has his phone and a bottle of water and they shot him ten TIMES!” she shouted.
ABC and The View did not respond to NewsBusters’ request for comment.
We wouldn’t talk either to someone as blatantly hostile to “The View” and its hosts as Fondacaro is — after all, he hurled numerous year-end attacks at the show for failing to be right-wing enough.
Alex Christy played comedy cop in a Jan. 27 post:
CBS’s host of The Late Show, Stephen Colbert, and Comedy Central’s Monday host of The Daily Show, Jon Stewart, both reacted to Border Patrol chief Greg Bovino denouncing those who have compared ICE and Border Patrol to the Gestapo by trying to argue the comparisons are legitimate.
The background for all the anti-ICE rhetoric was the Saturday shooting of Alex Pretti, but instead of waiting for an investigation to take its course or commenting on the specifics of this case, they tried to put it into a wider pattern. Stewart began by playing a clip from a recent Bovino press conference where he said, “Politicians, community leaders, and some journalists engage in that heated rhetoric…Calling law enforcement names like Gestapo.”
[…]Such broad allegations of Gestapo-like behavior are untruthful and dangerous. Even if the investigation in this case reveals that ICE was in the wrong, it still does not change the fact that Renee Good drove her car at an ICE agent and that another agent was forced to fire his gun after being attacked by men with snow shovels.
Actually, Good steered her car away from an ICE agent, not toward him.
Finkelstein returned to serve up a dose of whataboutism:
In castigating the Trump administration for its rhetoric on the ICE shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, Morning Joe spoke of “lie, lies, or lying” 21 times in the show’s first 15 minutes. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem was singled out for particular opprobrium.
And while Mika Brzezinski, Jonathan Lemire, and Willie Geist also got into the action, it was Joe Scarborough who carried the bulk of the “lying” load.
If there’s one person we don’t need to hear pontificating about lying, it’s Joe Scarborough. Joe’s the guy who—just three months before Joe Biden’s candidacy-ending debate meltdown—looked into the camera and angrily declared that the current Biden was “the best ever . . . and f-you if you don’t believe it.”
You might say that Scarborough’s reputation for veracity is not precisely pristine!
And neither is Finkelstein’s. Still, he continued:
The media in general have criticized Noem for claiming Pretti was “brandishing” a handgun, which doesn’t match videos of the shooting. He had a cell phone in his hand. Border Patrol chief Greg Bovino had said that Pretti “wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement,” and that Noem was “100% correct” in alleging that Pretti had been “brandishing” a gun.
But Scarborough said everything DHS said about Renee Good was “lies,” as they hit every ICE-hating take.
On Good, Morning Joe insisted on calling her the “victim,” villainizing ICE, while Mika Brzezinski insisted that the fact that ICE agent Jonathan Ross was previously dragged by a car and required 33 stitches in his leg wasn’t sympathetic, it was proof he was “trigger happy” and shouldn’t have been in the field.
Finkelstein didn’t dispute the accuracy of Scarborough’s observation, and he didn’t explain that Ross’ previous experience justified his killing of Good. Instead, he served up even more whataboutism: “Suffice it to say that this isn’t the Best Scarborough Ever. When they lament the deaths of Americans, we can recall how many times they felt pain for the families of Laken Riley, Rachel Morin, or Jocelyn Nungaray.”