Last week, I dropped a column on media manipulation in the immigration enforcement context, centered on the Los Angeles Times’ coverage of ICE raids in California.

That piece—The Ideological Hustle Masquerading as Journalism—examined how “advocates say” and incendiary or manipulative language are increasingly used to distort facts, assign victimhood, and turn criminal enforcement into a moral offense.

Politico offers yet another case study in narrative manipulation—this time leaning hard into passive framing and insinuation by adjacency, subtly recasting law enforcement as persecution and protest as immunity.

What Politico delivered here is gonzo gaslighting—where Molotov cocktails are softened into protest props and federal law enforcement is painted as the villain for doing its job.

Then it doubles down, merging felony charges of incendiary violence with LGBTQ advocacy into a single narrative—an insinuation-laden cocktail all its own.

So let’s walk through the passage.

In Los Angeles, his authority [United States Attorney for the Central District of California Bilal ‘Bill’ Essayli] ran up against the most basic form of dissent: public protest. As immigration enforcement officials, aided by Essayli’s search warrants and federal agents, launched targeted raids of migrant communities, they were met by demonstrators who intended to stand in the way. On Monday, Essayli announced that his prosecutors would use social media and video evidence to pursue protesters who threw objects at officers. Yesterday, two protesters were charged with possessing Molotov cocktails, which Essayli said would be punished by up to 10 years in prison.

‘I don’t care who you are—if you impede federal agents, you will be arrested and prosecuted,’ Essayli wrote on X after Huerta’s arrest on June 6.

Immigrant advocacy and LGBTQ rights organizations allege that he intends to use that authority to ‘prosecute his political opponents.’

(Politico does not mention it here, but........

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