The left side of our blog demands critical thinking and evidence. We mean it.
The Daily Mail, the original source of the story has been threatened with legal action over their claim that Melanoma Trump was a pricey prostitute / high end sex worker / escort.
In a related story, dug up by equally sleazy and frequently fact-challenged bigot spigot 'Red State', they advance the claim that Donald Trump appears to have licensed his valuable Trump name to an escort service. Except that as uncovered by the WaPo, NO, Trump never licensed his name or in any way was part of the Trump escort business, now operating under another name after they were hassled over it by the real Trump.
Because serious journalism digs up facts, even when those facts benefit someone like the Trumps. It is a matter of professionalism and ethical standards. It is about honesty, it is about valuing an objective world view.
More than that, those on the left who ran with the story got push back for it from the left.
The Daily Mail lacked evidence, but they were at least careful to be clear they had no evidence or identifiable on-the-record sources. So does Red State, for doing a substandard job of investigative journalism. Because the right wingers are incompetent and use their media services for slime-ing and to promote a constant and consistent false narrative to taint the world view of their crazier, and more gullible supportive base.
Well, DUH. The Daily Mail is an unreliable irresponsible freakishly bad sleazy tabloid, hugely mocked in the UK where it is based, and oft quoted by right wing nuts in their alternate reality blog bubbles where facts usually do not penetrate.
Let us demonstrate in one post a couple of important things. The first is that so-called 'lefty blogs' like this one apply one single standard by which to evaluate current events and scientific data; there is no double standard hypocrisy here for righties with a different one for the rest of the planet. The second is that we really DO demand evidence and critical thinking be applied, all the time, to everything, equally, for and from everyone.
The Daily Post ran sleazy porn photos of Melanoma, er, Melania Trump.
That has raised questions about Melanoma's work history and possible immigration fraud. If one were small minded, one might even speculate that the local right wing media went after Ihan Omar, Somali-American candidate for the state lege, by making a bogus claim she committed immigration fraud. That would be petty; but then the right is often petty. Building on the sleaze, or at least piling on the sleaze is the claim Melanoma was a prostitute back in the day.
I consider anyone who has a background like Melania Trump unqualified to serve as First Lady, given her theft of intellectual property in stealing key parts of her speech from Michele Obama; and apparently lying about her higher educational accomplishments, certainly posing for porn photos is not a good recommendation, nor is marrying for money instead of having your own success. The Trumps are not honest people, they are not decent people; they are greedy and bigoted people.
We have a polarized electorate in large part because there is a right wing media that exists to lie, to smear, to ignore and deny facts, while promoting a false narrative that deludes their supporters into believing things which are not true, which makes them paranoid, which leads them to credit crazy crack pot tin-foil-hat-wearing conspiracy theories. It embraces bigots and extremists, no matter how violent or evil, while driving out moderates who do not pander to the fact-averse or crackpot.
The right wing media, and their candidate, have dumbed down America and encouraged the most evil and hateful tendencies among us. They are wrong. They are bad. They are destructive - even to themselves.