We regret to inform you that Bari Weiss, the biggest mess to come out of Pittsburgh since Striking Distance, is reportedly back on her bullshit.
Semafor reports that with everything going on in the world — the Russia/Ukraine war, the US/Iran war, the upcoming midterms that will determine whether the Trump administration’s criminal spree can at least be slowed down over the next two years, crushing inflation and higher costs, climate change, hunger and poverty in America, the astounding costs of healthcare and the lack of access to it, the Supreme Court giving the president nearly unchecked powers in violation of both the letter and spirit of the Constitution they allegedly revere, the persecution of the transgender community by right-wing zealots, Israel and Gaza, the final season of Yellowjackets ...
That really is a lot. Hang on, we need to take several breaths.
With all of that, Weiss has decided that what CBS needs to focus “considerable resources” on right now is proving that Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed is some sort of secret Muslim Brotherhood fifth columnist who, at the moment he is sworn in next January, will don a keffiyeh and run around the Senate chamber ululating and firing an AK-47 into the air.
Okay, perhaps we exaggerate what’s in Bari Weiss’s pudding brain. But not by much:
Weiss has personally advocated for CBS News journalists to pursue numerous story angles related to El-Sayed’s supposed sympathy towards the Muslim Brotherhood, and was directly involved in a controversial story about his previous posts comparing the COVID-19 death toll to 9/11. She has discussed the topic on editorial calls, and tasked CBS News’ investigative unit with combing through El-Sayed’s background for a potential link to the organization.
The evidence, such as it is, consists of a tweet put out by El-Sayed’s half-sister in 2012 that claimed their mother had done some sort of activism with the Muslim Brotherhood back in the early 1970s. (We’ll be eagerly awaiting Weiss’s expose on Donald Trump’s father and the KKK.) This has sent the frothier precincts on the Right into a frenzy of insinuation that El-Sayed is a secret Muslim fanatic. And we all know what that means. Sharia law! Bans on all pork products! Buildings with minarets going up everywhere!
It’s the sort of bad faith, bigoted garbage that gets thrown at Ilhan Omar and Zohran Mamdani and every other high-profile Muslim in this country. Unfortunately, some of the people throwing this crap around are now CBS’s assignment editors.
(Although don’t think we don’t see you, David Axelrod. Of all the people who should know to push back on an attack on a candidate of color because conservatives think he’s too uppity ...)
Imagine what CBS editorial meetings must be like now, with Bari Weiss asking the important questions. What if @HitlerLover69 is telling the truth when he says on Twitter that Democrats are draining children’s adrenal glands and using it to make a line of beauty products? Let’s get an investigative team looking into that.
Weiss also supposedly had reporters looking into whether James Talarico really was in a mental hospital in Ohio for a week instead of home with the flu. That story, you will recall, blew up thanks to two white supremacists seemingly using AI to create audio of a call in which the hospital confirmed Talarico was there. That’s the side Bari Weiss is putting CBS News on.
How is Weiss, the head of one of the most storied news organizations in America’s history, any different then this smug little white supremacist Tommy PeePee, who tried to pull a gotcha on El-Sayed this weekend at a town hall and wound up getting his ass scorched so thoroughly that he won’t be able to sit down again until roughly 2075? Well, she’s female. And that’s it.
[Semafor]
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"What if @HitlerLover69 is telling the truth when he says on Twitter that Democrats are draining children’s adrenal glands and using it to make a line of beauty products? Let’s get an investigative team looking into that."
I'll wait for Weedlord Bonerhitler to weigh it on the subject.
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