House Oversight Committee Democrats were caught in a couple of significant “oopsies” on Twitter Tuesday, when it was discovered not one but two tweets they posted this month to promote a “kids in cages” immigration hearing that was held earlier today contained images of kids in cages during the Obama administration.
Fox News reports:
“Last week, members of our committee visited a detention center at the southern border and discovered grotesque treatment of children,” the first tweet, posted Tuesday afternoon, said. “This week, we are examining the inhumane treatment of the children in these detention centers.”
But the tweet included a photograph taken by The Associated Press in 2014, during the Obama administration, showing migrants in detention in Arizona. The Trump campaign flagged the soon-deleted tweet and noted the image comes from a time when current Democratic presidential primary front-runner Joe Biden was vice president.
“House Democrats are promoting their ‘civil rights’ hearing on ‘kids in cages’ and ‘inhumane treatment’ with a photo from 2014, when Joe Biden was Vice President,” the tweet read. “So dishonest!”
According to The Daily Caller, House Democrats then put up a new tweet with a different photograph — also, it turns out, from the Obama administration years. That tweet was soon deleted as well, after it was noticed by their Republican counterparts on the committee.
“You all know that’s a picture from 2014, right? Remind us who was President then,” the tweet said.
Here’s are screen grabs of the tweets. The first one was from July 2nd, according to Caleb Hull. The second one was from Tuesday the 9th:
LOL @OversightDems just deleted this tweet from July 2 after @GOPoversight called them out for using a 2014 picture on that one too pic.twitter.com/PrIcNBttcH
— Caleb Hull (@CalebJHull) July 9, 2019
The @OversightDems just deleted this tweet featuring a graphic placed over a photo of kids in cages at the border.
The only problem is that the photo was taken in 2014 while Obama was in office. pic.twitter.com/ApHhgtIaVk
— Caleb Hull (@CalebJHull) July 9, 2019
If they were sincerely interested in the full picture, why not just alter the text on the images to read “Kids in Cages: Inhumane Treatment at the Border from 2014-2019”? Because a full accounting regarding the origins of the “kids in cages” issues at the border is apparently just too much to ask for:
“The photo was an error, and it has been removed. But there is simply no comparison between the actions of the Obama Administration and the Trump Administrations,” a committee aide on the Democratic side told the Washington Examiner. “The Obama Administration did not separate children from their families and create dehumanizing conditions as a way to deter immigration and asylum, which is the stated policy of the Trump Administration. The Obama Administration separated children only in an extremely small number of cases when there was a true danger to the child’s safety.”
Last month, Obama’s former ICE chief Thomas Homan confirmed once again how and when the issues with putting kids behind the chain-link fences began.
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— Based in North Carolina, Sister Toldjah is a former liberal and a 15+ year veteran of blogging with an emphasis on media bias, social issues, and the culture wars. Read her Red State archives here. Connect with her on Twitter. –
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