When even someone from âThe Young Turksâ is apologizing for promoting a so-called âwhistleblowerâ and calling her a âgrifter,â you can tell the game is up.
In a video posted Thursday, Ana Kasparian, co-host of the far-left political show, apologized for her role in promoting Rebekah Jones â a former Florida Department of Health data analyst once considered a hero and a whistleblower for accusing GOP Gov. Ron Desantisâ administration of trying to get her to alter COVID-19 data in the state.
A report by Floridaâs inspector general later found those claims to be untrue â and her colleagues said she didnât even have access to the data she accused DeSantis-ites of asking her to alter.
Furthermore, she was in the headlines again this week after her son was arrested for threats of school violence; she claimed he was âkidnappedâ by police for nothing but mere memes ⌠and then tried to fundraise off her sonâs arrest.
This was apparently the final straw for Kasparian, whose show was one of many left-wing outlets to give Jonesâ accusations air when they first surfaced in 2020.
Kasparian, who is also the executive producer of the show, said she âscrewed up royallyâ in Jonesâ case.
âPart of the reason why I screwed up is because I had all these biases, of course, against Ron Desantis,â she said in the mea culpa video, adding she was âblindâ by the fact she doesnât think the Florida governor has done a good job. She added âI donât really feel bad aboutâ being biased, just âby allowing someone who might be a grifterâ to use her.
âI shouldâve done my due diligence, I failed to do so. And by failing to do so, I feel like I misled the audience into thinking that Rebekah Jones is some sort of hero,â Kasparian said.
However, she blamed the âmainstream mediaâ for also buying into Jonesâ anti-DeSantis narrative, noting that âindependentâ news sources like âThe Young Turksâ would find themselves repeating the same errors that those doing original reporting were.
The apology came after Jonesâ viral claims that DeSantisâ âfascistâ state was involved in âkidnappingâ her son didnât actually add up to the available evidence.
Jonesâ 13-year-old son was arrested, according to the Pensacola News Journal, after sending messages to his friends saying things such as, âI want to shoot up the school,â âIf I get a gun Iâm gonna shoot up hnms lol,â and âIâm getting a wrath and natural selection shirt so maybe but I donât think many ppl know what the columbine shooters look like.â
âOkay so itâs been like 3-4 weeks since I got on my new antidepressants and they arenât working but theyâre suppose to by now so I have no hope in getting better so why not kill the losers at school,â he said in another missive.
âI spoke to students from and was able to obtain screenshots of (the teenâs) Snapchat post containing threats,â the warrant report for his arrest read. â⌠The screen shots were a meme that shows a brain, with the brain saying, âreach for the officerâs gun,â and underneath was a caption which said, âme every time I see school security.ââ
While he had recently been a student at the school, the report states, he had since departed and was being homeschooled.
Jones went on Twitter on April 5 and claimed her son was âkidnappedâ on the âordersâ of âthe state.â
And, of course, she also used the opportunity to fundraise. Because of course she did.
While she doesnât have a fundraiser specifically for her sonâs cause, she did ask people to donate to her original âwhistleblowerâ fundraiser, which has raised over $23,000 for her on GoFundMe already.
As you will not be surprised to learn, video that was allegedly of Jones turning her son in to police â which, you know, doesnât qualify as kidnapping â quickly emerged on the internet.
Despite the fact that she regularly appeared on cable news and shows like âThe Young Turksâ before the inspector generalâs report last summer â which âfound no evidence that the misrepresented or otherwise misled the public regarding how positivity rates were calculatedâ and noted that Jones only had access to the online dashboard which displayed the data, not the raw internal numbers which the dashboard could be checked against â she was nowhere to be found after the latest round of allegations against DeSantis.
In fact, if she was being covered by the left-wing media, it was only because of the fact that the allegations were so outlandish that only the blindly partisan would believe them. Enter The Daily Beast, certainly a left-wing publication if there ever was one, where senior columnist Matt Lewis penned a piece with this title: âRebekah Jones and the Dangers of DeSantis Derangement Syndrome.â
âAnyone who is a parent can (somewhat) sympathize with Jonesâ defense of her son. I was once pulled into a meeting because my then-young son was alleged to have made threats against the school,â he wrote. âAfter being bullied by a student, he said something to the effect of, âI want to fire the school.â He meant that he wanted to terminate their employment. They initially interpreted âfire the schoolâ in a more incendiary way.
âWhile itâs tough being a parent, itâs even tougher to give Jones the benefit of the doubt in this particular situation. Her sonâs comments are hard to misinterpret, and the danger of ignoring blaring warning signs â look no further than the recent school shooting in Nashville â certainly outweighs the danger of intervention.
âMoreover, the notion that Jonesâ son was âkidnappedâ â her wording in a viral tweet â is undermined by the fact that she surrendered her son to the sheriffâs office last Wednesday,â he continued. âThere is also the unseemliness of Jones using this incident to raise money for her Whistleblower Go Fund Me.â
You donât say.
The fact that Rebekah Jones was a transparent Fraud was evident from day one, just like doubting the veracity of Hunter Bidenâs laptop or the sham Steele dossier. But, this is what happens when ideology âblindsâ one to the facts.
At least Kasparian and The Daily Beast admit it now â long after it really mattered. What a surprise.
Now, maybe they should do Trump Derangement Syndrome, as well.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
