Selective fact presentation

A great letter to the editor, Ms. Xuereb, detailing the tactics that many on the left attempt in gaslighting others. These folks on the left are hoping that people are too lazy to learn the context or the truth and instead will swallow without question whatever soundbite is given to them. Fortunately, based on past history, regular readers of the SMDJ know which folks we should listen to and take seriously versus which folks we should ignore.

I agree with Ms. Xuereb cautioning about inflammatory remarks, but I did not see that in Mr. Stone’s column. Mr. Stone cited the accounts of raw video and eyewitnesses in an honest manner. And I agree with Ms. Xuereb that all of this needs to be taken in context. I don’t know the reason Pretti struck the police car days earlier, but I don’t see what that has to do with him getting shot to death. And I don’t know why the woman was shoved to the road by law enforcement. Perhaps Mr. Pretti didn’t know either when he went in her defense. So I don’t believe Mr. Stone’s piece was meant to inflame public outrage with an intentional false narrative for personal gain or otherwise. Ms. Xureb’s conclusion was an eloquent statement that we should all adhere to. Something’s different from past immigration actions that’s causing ICE agents to shove people to the ground and use obscenities when ordering people out of their cars. Or stand with a drawn weapon in front of a vehicle about to move forward. I know they don’t teach that at the academy. What’s different this time? It’s the leaders of ICE. A former border patrol agent gives her account in a Substack post with a link to a telling promotional/recruitment ICE video: https://jennbudd.substack.com/p/border-patrol-ice-and-christian-nationalism.

In another example, an ICE recruitment post used the image of a man riding in the mountains in the snow with a stealth bomber flying above. The text accompanying the phrase was: “We’ll have our homeland again,” which is from a white nationalist anthem. And this is not a fluke. The SPLC, last year, reviewed Homeland Security posts and found them using “white nationalist and anti-immigrant slogans in recruitment materials” https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2026/01/13/department-labor-post-nazi-slogan/88156878007/.