Associated Press goes full Orwell, calling 'packing' of SCOTUS 'court reform'
It is obvious from Joe Biden telling voters that they don't deserve to know if he plans to pack the Supreme Court that he and his handlers are terrified of a negative voter reaction to the plan. Biden's remarkably stupid comment came in response to a reporter's question at an interview where no teleprompter guidance was feasible:
YouTube screen grab.
On Friday, a KTNV reporter asked him again about whether he backs court packing, saying, "This is the number one thing that I've been asked about from viewers in the past couple of days."
"Well, you've been asked by the viewers who are probably Republicans, who don't want me continuing to talk about what they're doing to the court right now," Biden responded
"Well, sir, don't the voters deserve to know…?" reporter Ross DiMattei asked.
"No, they don't.... I'm not gonna play his game, he'd love me to talk about, and I've already said something on court packing, he'd love that to be the discussion instead of what he's doing now," Biden said, likely referring to President Trump.
The campaign's first response to this insult to the electorate was word games, conflating the filling of a court vacancy with increasing the number of justices so as to produce a lopsided political majority for the party in power.
When reached for comment, the Biden campaign pointed Fox News to remarks Biden made Saturday to reporters.
"The fact is, the only packing going on is this court is being packed now by the Republicans after the vote has already begun. I'm going to stay focused on it so we don't take our eyes off the ball here," Biden said.
But this dodge is too easily debunked with one sentence. So, the propagandists at the AP (which used to mean Associated Press but now apparently means All Propaganda) invented a new and much trickier word game. Tom Bevan, the co-founder and president of Real Clear Politics, spotted the nefarious dodge buried an in AP dispatch:
With lightning speed, the Associated Press adopts Democrats' language on SCOTUS: adding members is now "depoliticizing" the court, only "critics" refer to it as "packing." pic.twitter.com/IBujBwmWE2
— Tom Bevan (@TomBevanRCP) October 11, 2020
Twitchy has collected an excellent group of responses to this Orwellian redefinition of terms:
Adding Justices to the US Supreme Court would be the most political, radical, partisan power grab possible for the Judiciary. That move is the polar opposite of “depoliticizing”.
— Lee Zeldin (@RepLeeZeldin) October 11, 2020
I’ve got very bad news for those pushing this new “depoliticizing” spin => Americans aren’t idiots! https://t.co/B6P1HOkCGd
This is unbelievable. AP has gone around the bend... https://t.co/rOLFBWXznQ https://t.co/L0obUd78wv
— Byron York (@ByronYork) October 11, 2020
The @AP is not an ethical news organization. https://t.co/FkQkE6cy95
— Dan Gainor (@dangainor) October 11, 2020
“Court packing” is a colloquial expression dating to at least the 1930’s when Franklin Roosevelt proposed adding seats to the court. It backfired and failed and has been referred to as court packing ever since. It’s the kind of succinct, well-known term newspeople normally like. https://t.co/fslvlhnXV8
— Brit Hume (@brithume) October 11, 2020
Caught and mocked, the AP backtracked a little, as Twitchy noted:
The latest version of the article contains the following note:
"This story has been edited to make clear that it is Bullock's opinion, rather than a fact, that adding justices to the Supreme Court would depoliticize the court."