AP redefined ‘insurrection’ to include J6 protests, then redefined it again to exclude TN and MT protests that disrupted legislatures - Thomas Lifson

 

by Thomas Lifson

AP acts as a propaganda organ for the left, not as a news agency.

Apparently, Humpty Dumpty has taken a senior editing position with the Associated Press. Lewis Carroll’s character from Alice in Wonderland famously intoned, “When I use a word… it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less,” and the giant propaganda agency feels the same way.

Writing in Human Events, Libby Emmons calls out the AP for redefining the word “insurrection” to apply to the January 6, 2021 demonstrators, and then, when that definition was applied by others to the left-wing demonstrations that disrupted the Tennessee and Montana state legislatures, re-redefining the term so as to solely apply to its enemies, the pro-Trump demonstrators. It’s an absolutely clear instance of AP acting as a propaganda organ for the left, not as a news agency.

In an interesting turn of events, the Associated Press no longer appears to believe that staging a riot at a capitol building with the intention of disrupting and diverting legislative proceedings is an insurrection. 

January 14, 2021 saw the AP publicly hashing out what to call the Capitol riot of January 6. In an article entitled "Riot? Insurrection? Words matter in describing Capitol siege," the AP ran through a list of potential words to describe the events in Washington, DC on that day. (snip)

The definition of the word insurrection? The AP writes: "an act or instance of revolting against civil authorities or an established government."

But now that riot is coming from the other side of the aisle, the AP wants to make sure that everyone knows when Democrats engage in "an act or instance of revolting against civil authorities or an established government," it is absolutely not an insurrection. (snip)

the AP trots out and entirely new definition of the word insurrection to back their idea that storming the capitol and distrupting legislative sessions is absolutely not an insurrection.

"Legal experts say the term insurrection has a specific meaning — a violent uprising that targets government authority," they say. And then they reach back into the 18th and 19th centuries for a definition, though in 2021 a perfectly contemporary definition would do.

"That’s how dictionaries described it in the 18th and 19th centuries," the AP writes deserately, "when the term was added to the Constitution and the 14th Amendment, said Laurence Tribe, a constitutional law professor at Harvard University."

The AP states that despite the arrests, those little protests in Montana and Tennessee "didn’t involve violence or any real attempts to dismantle or replace a government," and quote the Harvard professor again to say that "it's wrong to call them insurrections."

There’s more. Read the whole thing.

 
Thomas Lifson

Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/05/ap_redefined_insurrection_to_include_j6_protests_then_redefined_it_emagainem_to_exclude_tn_and_mt_protests_that_disrupted_legislatures.html

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