Tuesday, February 23, 2021

asmPolitics-506 [Jen Psaki, Hammer & Sickle Hat]

 https://www.foxnews.com/media/usa-today-fact-checking-jen-psaki-hammer-and-sickle-hat

USA Today panned for 'fact checking' viral photo of Jen Psaki wearing hammer and sickle hat: 'missing context'

Biden's press secretary pick raised eyebrows with a 2014 photo-op

USA Today was mocked on social media over a so-called "fact check" after an unflattering photograph of President-elect Joe Biden's press secretary pick went viral. 

Jen Psaki, an Obama administration alum, was one of several women who were named to head the White House communications team recently announced by the Biden-Harris transition. Psaki is set to take over the podium in the White House briefing room. 

However, following the announcement of Psaki's hire, a 2014 image resurfaced featuring her posing with her then-boss, former Secretary of State John Kerry, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, and Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova during her tenure as a State Department spokesperson.

Psaki is seen wearing a pink shapka, or fur hat, that bears the communist hammer-and-sickle logo as part of a gift exchange between herself and her Russian counterpart Zakharova.

The hammer and sickle has come to represent communist movements around the world. It also was featured on the flag of the former Soviet Union. It has also become a symbol of economic and political repression that occurs under communist regimes.

The photograph sparked mockery on social media as critics poked fun at the Russian collusion narrative that plagued much of the Trump presidency that jokingly would carry over into the Biden administration. 

On Tuesday, USA Today released a "fact check" that weighed in on the viral image. 

"The claim: A photo shows Jen Psaki wearing a hammer and sickle hat while posing with officials from Russia," USA Today wrote before reporting that Psaki did not end up keeping the hat according to a source familiar with the gift exchange. "Our ruling: Missing context."

The "fact check" explained, "The image is real, but claims that the hat was anything more a gift or that Psaki was with Russian officials in any capacity beyond her official role are MISSING CONTEXT."

Regardless, the newspaper's "fact check" was panned by critics on the right.

"Why are you [fact] checking this? No one’s making a claim just showing her wearing a commie hat… [THAT'S] A FACT!!!" Donald Trump Jr. exclaimed. "If the media stopped running cover for Democrats as their primary mission maybe they have some credibility left."

"This is not a fact-check. You're fact-checking a photo saying it 'needs context.' That's honestly Orwellian," Matt Whitlock of the National Republican Senatorial Committee told USA Today's fact checker Camille Caldera. 

"What context makes wearing communist symbolism in a photo — while representing the US — acceptable?" Daily Caller associate editor Virginia Kruta asked. 

"Missing context?! Sorry, this IS inexcusable. Not to sound harsh here, but if you abhor Nazism and Nazi symbols, you ought to equally abhor the communist hammer & sickle. Pleading ignorance here is unacceptable. But I'm just a kid of immigrants who fled the USSR...What do I know," Townhall.com writer Gabriella Hoffman tweeted.

In a tweet sent out Tuesday evening, Psaki appeared to allude to the viral controversy, but suggested that it was "Russian propaganda."

"For anyone who hasn't been the target of Russian propaganda (cc: @MCFaul @HillaryClinton) the purpose is to discredit powerful messengers and to spread misinformation to confuse the public. Anyone who repeats it is (unwitting or not) simply a puppet of the propaganda machine," Psaki wrote

Fox News' Sam Dorman contributed to this report.

  • For those of you who think this is diplomacy, you don't know what diplomacy is. You don't placate an adversary without gaining something in return and you certainly don't advocate or advertise on their behalf, such as wearing a hat with a very anti-American emblem.
    • audieho750
      Are you a diplomat yourself? I'm just curious.
      • audieho750
        LOL!!! She put a hat on for thirty seconds.
      • It's one thing to accept the hat as a gift. Putting it on and smiling while wearing it needs no further context. It states that the symbol is not offensive to her.
        • I have a "Fact Check" that really works. It's called HISTORY. I'm 75 years young and I lived through a lot of things they're arguing about today. I know the facts, I was there.
          • jerseyrod158
            Why is it acceptable for older people to say "Im so many years young" yet nobody says I'm 400 pounds skinny?
          • "Hunter Biden was paid $3.5 million by Russian oligarch - when Joe was VP." What about this - what's the context here?
            • MeOneGoodEye🏴‍☠️
              The 'missing context' according to Dims is that at least this time it was cash instead of cocaine.
              • MeOneGoodEye🏴‍☠️
                Haha!! Do you ever stop whining?
              • When you wear the Hammer and Sickle you disrespect the suffering of millions under the BOOT of communist thugs: "The Great Purge was a series of campaigns of political repression and persecution in the Soviet Union orchestrated by Joseph Stalin in 1937–1938. It involved the purge of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, repression of peasants, deportations of ethnic minorities, and the persecution of unaffiliated persons, characterized by widespread police surveillance, widespread suspicion of "saboteurs", imprisonment, and killings. Estimates of the number of deaths associated with the Great Purge run from the official figure of 681,692 to nearly 1 million."
                • A United States official representative who poses for a picture wearing the emblem of a Communist nation can not be taken out of context.
                  • spidergc
                    Wait. What? This is a hat given to her by a Russian friend. And what? You think it makes her a communist? Are you serious?
                    • spidergc
                      There are USC's against such acts.
                    • Where is Hunter Biden these days?
                      • captstoney
                        I'm guessing Geneva or Zurich...
                        • captstoney
                          I am going to nominate him to be Ambassador to the Ukraine so I can watch 70 million heads explode.
                        • ""For anyone who hasn't been the target of Russian propaganda (cc: @MCFaul @HillaryClinton) the purpose is to discredit powerful messengers and to spread misinformation to confuse the public. Anyone who repeats it is (unwitting or not) simply a puppet of the propaganda machine," Psaki wrote. " I notice, that nowhere in her comment does she deny the photo is real. Propaganda, isn't always inaccurate, or false. Often, it is real. I remember a lot of Russian propaganda about them being ahead of the Americans in the early days of the space race. Guess what - they were!
                          • News agencies are exentions of the Democratic Party. That my friends we have learned during these past four years.
                            • GoldBus
                              "The press must grow day in and day out - it is our Party's sharpest and most powerful weapon."
                              • Joseph Stalin
                            • ----"A picture is worth a thousand words"; USA Today is not.

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