Category: Liberal media
Slate smear fails: DHS torpedoes anti-Trump agitator’s ‘lazy lie’ about infiltrating ICE
Slate magazine published a hit piece by an anti-Trump propagandist on Tuesday suggesting that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement does such a poor job of screening applicants that “trigger-happy” criminals — or even subversive Antifa apologists — could find themselves with badges.
“A few months ago, ICE hired me,” Laura Jedeed, the self-identified “anti-ICE journalist” behind the piece, noted in a summary of her article on X. “I didn’t sign and submit any paperwork. I’m real outspoken about my opinion of the Trump administration, and I am extremely googlable[.] And yet, there it was, in plain English. ‘Welcome to ICE!'”
‘ICE had officially hired me.’
Liberal rags such as the Guardian and Democracy Now! rushed to amplify Jedeed’s tale, along with her suggestion that if she made it through the recruitment process, then pedophiles, rapists, white supremacists, and other unsavory characters might similarly be securing ICE jobs.
The Department of Homeland Security stated, however, that the Slate article’s core claim was “a lazy lie.”
This response was met in turn with a community note on X casting doubt on the agency’s denial.
After corresponding with both parties, Blaze News learned that contrary to the 38-year-old leftist’s suggestion, ICE neither hired Jedeed nor sent her a final offer.
In her article, Jedeed claimed she spoke to a recruiter and submitted her resume at an ICE career expo in Texas last August, working under the presumption that her time serving in the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division, her repeat deployments to Afghanistan, and her civilian analyst work might “tantalize a recruiter for America’s Gestapo-in-waiting.”
Photo by Mostafa Bassim/Anadolu via Getty Images
Jedeed indicated that on Sept. 3, she received a tentative offer instructing her to log on to USAJobs, fill out a declaration for federal employment, and submit several documents, including driver’s license information, an affidavit that she never received a domestic violence conviction, and a form consenting to a background check.
‘I never received an emailed final offer.’
Despite supposedly doing “exactly none of these things,” she allegedly received an email three weeks later indicating that she had confirmed her intention to continue with the hiring process and asking her to complete a pre-employment drug test.
The leftist suggested that she subsequently traveled to her local LabCorp, underwent a drug test with THC potentially coursing through her system, and then — nine days later — discovered that “ICE had apparently offered me a job.”
“According to the application portal, my pre-employment activities remained pending. And yet, it also showed that I had accepted a final job offer and that my onboarding status was ‘EOD’ — Entered On Duty, the start of an enlistment period,” she wrote. “I moused over the exclamation mark next to ‘Onboarding’ and a helpful pop-up appeared. ‘Your EOD has occurred. Welcome to ICE!'”
In a video Jedeed shared online, the ICE recruitment portal appears to indicate that she was in the fifth and final stage of onboarding for the role of deportation officer, despite indications that she not yet completed the drug or physical fitness tests. The video also appears to show the ICE portal state welcome Jedeed to ICE and specify that her EOD was on Sept. 30.
“By all appearances, I was a deportation officer. Without a single signature on agency paperwork, ICE had officially hired me,” Jedeed wrote. “Perhaps, if I’d accepted, they would have demanded my pre-employment paperwork, done a basic screening, realized their mistake, and fired me immediately.”
While the DHS did not comment on the authenticity of Jedeed’s video, a spokesperson told Blaze News, “This individual was NEVER offered a job at ICE. Applicants may receive a Tentative Selection Letter following their initial application and interview that is not a job offer.”
The agency’s careers page states that “following receipt of a tentative selection letter, you must complete per-employment requirements. These requirements vary by position. All positions require security vetting and drug test. You may also be required to pass a medical exam, fitness exam and oral board interview.”
The page notes further that “a tentative selection letter remains tentative until all pre-employment requirements are met for the position.”
RELATED: Blocking ICE with ‘micro-intifada’: Good’s group taught de-arrest, cop-car chaos before her death
Photographer: Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg via Getty Images
When asked about the DHS statement to Blaze News, Jedeed said, “I did not receive a final offer, nor did I accept one.”
Jedeed noted in a follow-up email, “To clarify: I did not receive a final offer in the mail.”
“I never received an emailed final offer — the portal indicated that I had already accepted that offer, as you can see from the screen capture posted on X,” she wrote.
When asked whether she suspected or had any reason to believe that the system would have barred her from proceeding upon hitting the accept button, Jedeed told Blaze News:
I do not know what would have happened had I hit that accept button on the ICE portal. It’s possible they would have asked for the paperwork — I certainly hope so. But the fact I already had an EOD date before filling out paperwork which the tentative job offer described as mandatory for proceeding to the next phase of the hiring process (final offer, onboarding), and the fact that my background check showed up as completed, are reasons for concern.
While she was not hired, did not receive a final offer, and has conceded that perhaps what she experienced on the ICE recruitment portal was “some kind of computer glitch,” Jedeed nevertheless suggested in her Slate piece that her recruitment experience is indicative of a broader problem at the agency — a problem that set the stage for Renee Nicole Good’s death.
“How are we to trust ICE’s allegedly thorough investigations of the people they detain and deport when they can’t even keep their HR paperwork straight?” Jedeed wrote. “And if they’re not going to screen me out, what hope is there of figuring out which recruit might one day turn into a trigger-happy agent who would forget that law enforcement officers are trained not to stand in front of vehicles, get jumpy, and shoot a 37-year-old woman to death on the streets of Minneapolis?”
Jedeed, like her fellow travelers in the media, neglected to mention that Good — whom Jedeed claimed was murdered — was shot while driving her SUV into an ICE agent after ignoring multiple lawful orders and interrupting a federal law enforcement operation.
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Liberal media remains DEAD SILENT on Biden FBI’s Arctic Frost operation against conservatives
Recent history suggests that the liberal media will go to great lengths to amplify a story if it appears beneficial to the left even if the story lacks any basis in fact.
Among the many cases that conform to this apparent pattern were liberal outlets’ hysterical coverage of the Russian collusion hoax, Joe Biden’s supposed competence as president, Jussie Smollett’s apparent hate hoax, the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines, and Covington Catholic students’ harassment by radicals during the 2019 March for Life in the national capital.
On the flip side, factual stories that pose a political threat to the liberal powers that be tend to get little to no mainstream coverage. This is especially true of the latest revelations about the Biden FBI’s Arctic Frost operation.
According to recent analysis conducted by the media watchdog outfit NewsBusters, ABC, CBS, and NBC News avoided the story in their television broadcasts in recent days.
‘Not one single broadcast network aired one solitary second.’
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) published damning documents on Oct. 6 detailing how the Biden FBI sought private cellphone records from at least nine Republican lawmakers during Operation Arctic Frost — an operation that set the stage for at least one case brought against President Donald Trump by former Attorney General Merrick Garland’s dubiously appointed special counsel, Jack Smith.
Grassley released additional documents last week showing that Smith and his team subpoenaed records for over 400 Republican individuals and entities as part of what the Iowa senator called a “fishing expedition.”
Blaze News previously noted that as of midday Thursday, liberal news outfits such as ABC News, the Atlantic, CBS News, the New York Times, and the Washington Post had yet to cover the latest tranche of documents exposing how the Biden lawfare regime hounded American conservatives across the country in their print coverage.
RELATED: Damning new docs reveal who’s on Biden admin’s ‘enemies list,’ expose extent of FBI’s Arctic Frost
Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
The media blackout was apparently just as bad when it came to television coverage.
ABC, CBS, and NBC News not only neglected to cover the Arctic Frost bombshells on their flagship Wednesday night, Thursday morning, and Friday morning shows but apparently dodged over the weekend as well, reported NewsBusters.
“There was no discussion, at any time and on any of the Sunday shows, about the use of the extraordinary powers of federal law enforcement against those perceived to be in support of President Donald Trump ahead of a potential 2024 presidential run,” wrote NewsBusters analyst Jorge Bonilla.
“There was no discussion about the subpoenas, obtained in secret, against 197 individuals — including multiple Members of Congress. There was no mention of the slew of subpoenas against nonpartisan organizations perceived to be in support of the former president,” continued Bonilla. “There was no mention of the secretive nature of the subpoenas issued to banks and Big Tech organizations, which came with their own gag order, which may well constitute an impeachable offense for the judges that issued such orders.”
“Had any of this happened under a Trump administration, you’d have everyone across the dial howling bloody murder,” added Bonilla.
“Not one single broadcast network aired one solitary second,” Media Research Center President David Bozell noted on Friday. “Normally they’ll mention it in the most innocuous way so they can later say, ‘We covered it,’ but this time they didn’t even bother.”
Blaze News confirmed that, except for one sympathetic NBC News article about Jack Smith on Wednesday, news outlets ABC, CBS, and NBC did not report on the Arctic Frost allegations made last week.
Rather than address the historic weaponization of the FBI against sitting senators and conservative groups, talking heads on the liberal networks instead exhausted airtime yammering about the construction of the White House ballroom, the potential expiration of SNAP benefits, Prince Andrew’s loss of title, and talk of the weather.
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‘Not. One. Story.’ Liberal news outlets’ silence regarding Biden’s ‘enemies list’ is deafening
The liberal media wasted a great deal of airtime and ink over the past decade fearmongering about the Russian collusion narrative but clammed up earlier this year when the Trump administration produced receipts demonstrating that the basis of multiple investigations and numerous arrests was nothing more than a hoax perpetrated on the American people by the Obama administration.
In the wake of revelations this week about Operation Arctic Frost — chiefly about the Biden FBI’s surveillance of Republican lawmakers and indiscriminate targeting of conservatives — the liberal media has once again proven strategically incurious, evidencing the unidirectional nature of their outrage.
‘They screamed when Nixon’s “enemy list” was exposed.’
The New York Times, for instance, has concern–mongered in recent weeks about personnel changes at the Justice Department and the Trump administration’s alleged use of “the federal government’s vast intelligence gathering and law enforcement authority to cast the specter of criminality on Mr. Trump’s enemies.”
However, with the apparent exception of an Oct. 7 article focusing on Republican denunciations of special counsel Jack Smith’s covert collection of lawmakers’ phone records and an Oct. 21 article boosting denials issued on Smith’s behalf by his lawyers, the Times has avoided troubling itself with questions about Arctic Frost or the latest documents highlighting the Biden FBI’s targeting of conservatives.
The Times was far from the only liberal publication to ignore the documents released this week by Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley (R) and the House Judiciary Committee revealing the massive scope of the Arctic Frost dragnet.
The Washington Post, CBS News, ABC News, and the Atlantic similarly appear to have largely ignored the matter, publishing little to nothing this week on the latest bombshells.
RELATED: Damning new docs reveal who’s on Biden admin’s ‘enemies list,’ expose extent of FBI’s Arctic Frost
Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images
CNN’s coverage this month appears to be limited to a piece boosting denials on Smith’s behalf and an analysis piece by senior reporter Aaron Blake, who did his apparent best to downplay the finding that Smith had covertly obtained the phone records of Republican lawmakers.
Blake claimed that the “GOP is exaggerating the evidence”; that the evidence does not “fit what is traditionally understood to constitute ‘spying'”; that the surveillance of lawmakers’ communications is not unprecedented; and that “we certainly don’t have evidence that it was done for political purposes.”
While MSNBC, NBC News, and Politico seemed interested in engaging with the story prior to this week, their efforts were apparently focused on downplaying the findings, portraying Smith as a victim, and painting Arctic Frost as an apolitical investigation and Republicans’ concerns as unhinged.
Trump ally Roger Stone noted, “They screamed when Nixon’s ‘enemy list’ was exposed. Why aren’t the media and the Democrats talking about the Arctic Frost TARGET LIST — the ultimate weaponization of the criminal justice system?”
Tom Bevan, the president of RealClearPolitics, expressed amazement, writing on Thursday morning, “No mention of Arctic Frost in the NY Times or the Washington Post. These are not ‘news’ organizations any more.”
Bevan added, “Same on CNN, ABC News, CBS News … and NBC News. Not. One. Story.”
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.) said Wednesday that what is revealed in the latest document dumps regarding Arctic Frost “is nothing short of a Biden administration enemies list. I’m old enough to understand how toxic a term that was under Richard Nixon. This is far worse — far worse, orders of magnitude worse.”
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