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Proving once again that the media practices a “rules for thee, not for me” approach to pretty much everything, a Bloomberg reporter apparently got an incoming senior aide at the Department of Labor fired over a Facebook post.
Again, why were they suprised when “mutually assured destruction” became the rule of the day when this kind of stuff is a bragging point for journalists?
Bloomberg reporter Ben Penn had a total “gotcha!” post. He went digging through incoming Department of Labor senior aide Leif Olson’s Facebook page to find some dirt, any dirt. What he came up with, he wrote up in an article, claiming anti-Semitism.
SCOOP: Trump Labor Department's new sr adviser Leif Olson posted on Facebook that Jewish media "protect their own." In response to my request for comment on Olson's anti-Semitic post, @USDOL says they've accepted his resignation. https://t.co/68kDvaFn0h
— Ben Penn (@benjaminpenn) September 3, 2019
Olson was apparently on the job for 18 days before Penn, with a larger media platform than he has brains, decided to go sifting through his Facebook profile for funsies and a hit job. Why does the media have a credibility problem? It’s a mystery, Charlie Brown.
The worst part of this is that it seems to be universally agreed that Olson was mocking Paul Nehlen, who is the anti-Semite crazy person who made a media profile for himself trying to primary former Speaker Paul Ryan. Who says so? Other media figures like Jonathan Chait, who pointed out that the sarcasm in Olson’s post is pretty obvious – and that Penn also edited a couple of comments out to make the context less obvious.
In the post that got him fired, Olson was mocking Nehlen and the logic of his supporters: pic.twitter.com/IeBvkcvAJX
— Jonathan Chait (@jonathanchait) September 3, 2019
And the media wonders why Donald Trump’s message resonates with the average American.
That isn’t stopping Penn from defending his social media trawling. After all, if Olson wasn’t guilty, why did he quit? Huh? HUH? (Never mind that Steve King has no committee assignments while Ilhan Omar sits on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.)
To Leif Olson's friends & others who take issue with this reporting,
I sent a screenshot of a public FB post to DOL, seeking comment. 4 hours later I received this response: “Today, the Department of Labor accepted the resignation of Leif Olson effective immediately.” https://t.co/PZbIScDHqe— Ben Penn (@benjaminpenn) September 3, 2019
Olson was literally a cog in the Department of Labor’s wheel. They could afford to lose him. It certainly doesn’t affect the DOL to lose a new senior aide as much as it does to have a man’s professional life targeted and ruined because a reporter is either stupid or malicious.
And those are really the only two options. If Ben Penn is too stupid to know what sarcasm is, then he must have nearly wet himself with excitement when he discovered this post. Thinking that he was delivering a blow for social justice and against racism, he ran to tattle to the DOL. Or Penn was deliberately malicious, edited the comments off the Facebook post to make sure the casual reader would buy the anti-Semitism claim, because he’s mean and vicious enough to smear someone he’s never met to make his social justice bones. He got a man fired (sure, he “offered his resignation,” sure), and then went to brag about it, thinking he was about to gain some serious journalisming cred. When other media outlets and journalists pointed out that he is an idiot, his only defense is “Well, he quit, didn’t he? HE MUST BE GUILTY.”
We’re all going to have to take a page from Governor Ralph Northam. Never admit to anything, give vague apologies, ignore the media until they get distracted by something else. It’s a pity that the DOL and Leif Olson couldn’t follow this formula long enough for Ben Penn to be exposed as a giant tool. Honestly, Leif Olson should be talking to a libel lawyer to see what his options are.
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Why do you think the reporter was either stupid or malicious? He’s probably both!
Yeah, I have a social media presence too. I make posts about cookies or bread that I’ve baked. And that’s it.
Avoid social media, avoid Siri, avoid Alexa, avoid wireless door cams, use a VPN etc. The digital world is out to destroy you just for the fun of it, no matter who you are. The only people who need to know your opinions and thoughts are real friends and close family, and you share with them verbally. Be opinion free at work. Don’t even express your opinion in a text message to family, because those are all saved somewhere and someone nefarious will be able to get access to them. There is no privacy and you have no rights.
Sad, but we really are living in the New Soviet. Assume evil intent and act accordingly.
SDN says: Do you really think that every comment you’ve ever made on this blog and elsewhere hasn’t been scraped and archived?
GWB says: Penn also edited a couple of comments out to make the context less obvious
Oh, it was worse than that. It seems he cropped the screenshot to exclude some parts of the original post, too. Bits that also made clear the context was mocking an actual anti-semite.
IOW, Ben Penn committed libel in order to get a non-leftist fired.
a screenshot of a public FB post
You’re a liar, Ben. You sent a partial screenshot.
because a reporter is either stupid or and malicious
FIFY
Honestly, Leif Olson should be talking to a libel lawyer to see what his options are.
Sadly, he probably won’t. He’d have to be the sort of person who wouldn’t walk away in the first place.
But the idea of not accepting slander of your character and of your positions is why Trump won in 2016.
And the left doubling down on that slander is not going to get them anything bot Moar Trump in 2020.
SDN says: “We’re all going to have to take a page from Governor Ralph Northam.”
We can’t, as you knew before you typed that ridiculous paragraph. We’re not elected to our jobs, careers, etc., we’re dependent on the courage of our current and future employers, customers, and friends.
And every single one of them knows two inescapable facts:
1. Under our current “hostile environment” legal system, failure to denounce is evidence that they possessed the mindset to do whatever “crime” they’re accused of.
2. Unlike us, the Left has a long history of sending mobs around to interfere with business during daylight….. and burning them down at night.
We’re past being able to survive by hiding.
njc says: To quote Peter Schickle, it was a Research and Destroy mission, though of a different sort.
John Jorsett says: And now he’s been reinstated. That was a pretty short-lived “victory” for Penn.
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