Monday, May 25, 2020

RIGHT-WING DISINFORMATION NEVER TAKES A DAY OFF

I spotted this in my Twitter feed a little while ago:



In New York City, large religious gatherings are still banned, and dispersals of large groups of Jewish worshipers have featured prominently in the news.
On April 28, Mr. de Blasio personally oversaw the dispersal of a crowd of 2,500 mourners who had gathered in Williamsburg for the funeral of a rabbi who died of the virus. Two days later, the police issued five fire code violations and six summonses after officers found large groups of worshipers hiding in two Hasidic synagogues in Williamsburg.

Mr. de Blasio’s strong denunciation of the April 28 event prompted some Jewish leaders to say he was singling out a particular community unfairly.
But de Blasio was right to be concerned:



So of course conservatives would want to catch de Blasio extending a privilege to Muslims that he won't extend to Jews.

But, um, what's wrong with the picture in the tweet above?

Notice what the Muslim worshipers are wearing: quilted jackets. Nobody wears those in New York City in late May. It's too warm and humid.

I'm sure you'll be shocked to learn that the photo is from before the pandemic. Well before, in fact. I found it in a post from a right-wing site dated February 3, 2017.



The retweeter -- GrrrGraphics Cartoons -- isn't just some Twitter rando. He's Ben Garrison, one of the most popular pro-Trump cartoonists. (I hate-follow him.) Last year he was invited to a social media summit at the White House, but it was later announced that he wouldn't attend. This was after the media took a closer look at some of his work.



Yet Garrison is still a right-wing star. He has more than 213,000 followers on Twitter.

The right-wing disinformation machine never takes a day off.


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