1 Trending: Florida’s Democrat Senate Candidate ‘Absolutely’ Supports Packing SCOTUS

2 Trending: James Comey Faces New Charges In Alleged New York Times Leak

3 Trending: Election Integrity Warrior Cleta Mitchell Drives The Left Crazy

4 Trending: Why Elissa Slotkin’s Threats To Trump Staffers Are Probably Unconstitutional

The Lazy ProPublica Hit Piece On Cleta Mitchell Is Full Of Howlers

Watch with great care when lazy journalists start using the word ‘unprecedented.’

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Framing exposes bad faith. A whole bunch of feelings-words shape and direct the fact-words, pushing them beyond their provable meaning. And then, when the supposed facts do show up, a bunch of them are obviously false.

ProPublica has just published a lazy hit piece on election integrity activist Cleta Mitchell, and any degree of media literacy would allow an alert reader to see through it. The phrase “conspiracy theories” puts in the usual work, making its first appearances in the third and sixth paragraphs. Mitchell is Captain Ahab, crazy and unbalanced: “ProPublica traced her obsession with politics and elections back to its roots.” 1.) She’s trying to keep noncitizens from voting. 2.) What are the psychological roots of her bizarre and obsessive behavior?

Election integrity? How did she become so insane?

Here’s a whole paragraph, and see if you can discern its narrative function:

Much of Mitchell’s influence derives from years of groundwork she’s done to put a foundation under the so-called election-integrity movement, once dismissed as a collection of oddballs and fringe actors.

Much of Mitchell’s influence derives from years of groundwork she’s done to put a foundation under the so-called election-integrity movement, once dismissed as a collection of oddballs and fringe actors.

It’s so subtle, right?

The story repeatedly depicts normal things as strange and esoteric things, as in this description of the SAVE Act: “The bill set a high bar for proving citizenship, demanding that would-be voters produce documents like certified birth certificates and passports that many Americans don’t have.”

I mean, have you even heard of this strange “birth certificate” document? Has anyone ever really seen one? Proving citizenship is like working at the cutting edge of quantum physics, and the deeply arcane processes involved in this complex scholarly maneuver are only understood by a small team of top researchers at Caltech.

But finally, watch with great care when lazy journalists start using the word “unprecedented.” Federal involvement in elections, the story keeps saying, has never happened........

© The Federalist