LOS ANGELES, CA – In 2022, it is easy for anyone on the left to shut down any nuanced discussion to instead, default to name-calling a conservative as a “right wing extremist”, “election denier”, or to equate any support for MAGA or Trump, no matter how limited that support is, to discredit the other person. This is all too common on Twitter or online forums, but I did not expect this type of low-level analysis from a newspaper’s editorial board.
I actually find it extra offensive when a news outlet does such a thing. The media should be presenting both sides or neutrality, and allow people to make the decision for itself based on facts. But the bias is so over-the-top now, that citizen journalists such as myself have to cover a perspective on the right because it is completely shut down like this through name-calling and detail-thin broad strokes by our mainstream outlets. Let’s dissect this further, shall we?
The local San Gabriel Valley Tribune just weighed in on a local Congressional race, endorsing sitting incumbent Norma Torres, despite their own reservations, saying they don’t always see “eye to eye” with Norma, but she supposedly “is a sensible Democrat who doesn’t always go along with the left flank of her party.” Yet there is no documentation of how she’s a sensible Democrat, nothing to back up those claims where she supposedly bucked her party.
This “reluctant” endorsement was only made because the conservative Republican candidate Mike Cargile was just so far out there, supposedly, using words as “not a serious candidate” and “There is no serious case for Cargile” as well as urging Republicans to vote Norma or to leave it blank because of his “poisonous, hateful ideas in our politics”. All I hear is name calling but no actual quotes or points to back up why this man is such a supposed extremist.
Spoken more like a Twitter troll leftist partisan rather than a clearheaded Editorial Board, the SGV Tribune perpetuates outright lies and distortions of an America-First candidate simply having the gall to bring up human trafficking as a major issue and daring to tie it to the opposition against previous president Donald Trump, who they can’t seem to stop living rent free in their heads, even after he has left office for about two years now.
Meanwhile, nothing the current President Biden does is seen as extremist, such as record inflation affecting gas prices, food prices and mass shortages, while spiraling our national debt out of control with ridiculous spending bills that don’t help the common man’s problems, or the unnecessary draconian measures to address COVID, while he and his wife contracted the disease despite supposedly following protocols, or the scandals his son was involved with that were suppressed by the media? Also, Norma Torres has won awards from Planned Parenthood. Can’t abortion which is the murder of a baby, be seen as extremist? See the problem with the word “extremist” and hyperbolic identifiers like this?
On so many levels, this is wrong. Why just allude to Norma not being perfect and ignore addressing the finer points if this was an honest endorsement? Why paint Mike Cargile in a broad stroke and refuse to actually discuss the merits of his candidacy? SGV Tribune, and subsequently the Southern California News Group which syndicates to 12 papers, all controlled by the same entity, shows its clear bias and wrongheaded thinking when it comes to left and right politics.
This is also an instance where my lying eyes tell me differently from what the media is trying to serve up. This is Mike’s second run at Congress, so he’s not just a newbie on the scene. I watched him work very hard last time around and see him doing so again this time around, caring about the community and working with all sorts of groups to address tangible issues like crime and safety, small businesses, inflation, and yes, human trafficking. So I caught up with Mike Cargile to hear his side of the story.
An important point that was addressed by Mike in our interview was the SGV Tribune’s claim that “Torres, who was born in Guatemala amid that country’s brutal civil war, has a deep understanding of what drives ongoing surges of migrants to the southern border.” This statement in all its vagueness, seems to establish Torres as legitimate just because of where she is from. That’s flawed thinking right from the get-go.
Yet, Cargile brings up a great point to at least ponder, even if you don’t automatically accept it: what if she is a party to those problems? “Torres is from Guatemala. Her family, we believe, fought for the Communists in Guatemala. That’s why they shipped her up here as a child. She was here illegally till she was 18. And then she was naturalized. She’s only had one job in her whole life and that was answering phones for LAPD. She became a 911 Dispatch. And there’s a whole dark side to that we believe, because that was also the birth of MS13 in Los Angeles. This all occurred around the same time.”
Cargile brought up another great point, as Norma Torres is indeed a proud and open “open borders” advocate. He says, when the SCNG and SGV Tribune endorse her, they show that they are “nothing more than political puppets or yellow journalists for the liberal establishment. Because Norma Torres has been very vocal about [open borders] for years, allows for rampant human trafficking of women and children being brought across the border by the cartels by the gangs, predominantly out of Guatemala. I’m enjoying Latino support up here now, because [many Latinos in the district are concerned about] protecting their family members down in Central America from Norma.”
The human trafficking issue itself was only seen as a priority by the previous Trump administration but now has gone back to being an issue fallen on the wayside. Cargile cited important statistics to me, such as millions of kids trafficked, way more than the original Africans brought over on slave ships. Now, we have different kinds, from sex trafficking to forced labor and organ harvesting. In addition, the fentanyl issue is intertwined in this illegal trade over our borders. Cargile spoke sadly about a friend, whose daughter recently died of a fentanyl overdose.
“Norma Torres is at the heart of it, because she’s been a proponent of this for years and years. So that’s what the Southern California News Group actually owns: the destruction of the economy, and the destruction of the people in my district. And if they want to be a champion of Norma Torres in that respect, then they’ve just shown us who they truly are. But this evil is worse than you can imagine.“
On other issues, Cargile mentions that Torres has a terrible record with business groups, scoring an F in her votes that have hurt small businesses. In addition, he ties her voting and decision making to hurting California overall, with her support of the Green New Deal and taxes without accountability, citing Biden’s money to the border crisis will actually fund Latin American drug cartels.
These are the extremist views SCNG feels is not even worth a discussion. Cargile says it best, “if they want to say I’m a crazy person for actually caring about my community, then I say we don’t need the Southern California News Group at all. The Southern California News Group is part of this cabal of misinformation, because you could say if you don’t let the truth out, that’s as bad as spreading a lie.”
The bottom line is the news media, clearly biased, presents this facade of impartiality when deeper analysis and observation shows that is patently not the case. But they avoid nuanced discussion and analysis through broad-stroke name calling, using the word “extremists” and somehow painting extremist views on the left as “sensible” and “mainstream’. We know this is their playbook but here’s a specific case on the ground, in California, where diversity of thought is being attacked and suppressed daily.
This is one of the moments I had to call out, because I’m close to the ground and I see both candidates and my own business is in the district. I also see the media’s sins of distortion and omission. It was important I called the weak endorsement of Torres out and heard from the supposed extremist, Mike Cargile, himself, who actually laid down his points in a logical manner and delved into the issues more than the clearly biased endorsement did. Let’s reimagine a media that does better, shall we?
For my full interview with Cargile, click here.
You can also support Cargile for Congress at http://www.CargileForCongress.com
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