As I wrote earlier, The "Breitbarting" of President Biden is off and running!
The newest phony outrage with that the Taliban were flying helicopter and hanging an Afghan interpreter by his neck.
Right-winger politicians, in the media and online, immediately jumped on it, but as usual it was another fraud.
In what f***ing world was it a good idea to just hand over a country to these people. https://t.co/fyO2fnxmfz
— Dan Crenshaw (@DanCrenshawTX) August 30, 2021
Around the 43rd minute of Hannity's Tuesday night broadcast he played video of the alleged incident using the New York Post as his trusted source, showing the person hanging down from the helicopter blurred out.
Hannity gave a viewer warning about the video that he was about to show.
"According to the New York post there is a disturbing video showing a man hanging from a Black Hawk helicopter," Hannity said.
Hannity admitted Fox News hadn't verified it yet, but that didn't stop him from airing it and flipping out.
Hours before, this whole incident was debunked by VICE News: No, the Taliban Did Not Just Hang an Interpreter From a US Helicopter
Also. CNN's Daniel Dale.
The claim that the Taliban executed a man via helicopter hanging - promoted by Sen. Ted Cruz, Rep. Dan Crenshaw, and numerous others on the right - has been thoroughly debunked. Here's the most thorough fact check so far, from @zoo_bear: https://t.co/fVQrGrDGrq
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) August 31, 2021
Sen. Ted Cruz was forced to delete this earlier tweet (h/t mediaite)
But why would a US Senator not verify a possible horrific act before sending it to his thousands of followers? It's rank and disgusting partisan politics by Cancun Cruz.
Media Matters writes, "The fact check from Alt News, cited by Dale, quoted a source from Afghan news agency Aśvaka who said that “the person was controlled and hanging from the helicopter to fix the flag at the governor’s building in Kandahar.”
And then there is the idiot son.
Donald Trump Jr. has changed his Twitter banner to a Biden-mocking image featuring a man appearing to be hanged from a helicopter, though, again, the helicopter execution story was imaginary. pic.twitter.com/zcEzg5VI1b
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) September 1, 2021
This is the tip of the iceberg of misinformation, lies, doctored videos and conspiracy theories that we will see moving forward. This time, they aren't being created by Russian bots like they were in 2016, but supposed credible right-wing news sources.