Ethics Alarms put the much-admired (by conservatives) website Breitbart on its black list at least as far back as 2016. It might even be earlier, but finding the exact date when I got disgusted isn’t worth the time it would take away from my sock drawer inventory. It would be nice if the site were trustworthy, but Breitbart is as biased and devoted to manipulating public opinion to view conservative agenda items (and conservative figures, especially Donald Trump) in a positive light as the Huffington Post and the Daily Beast are in the opposite direction.

The latest example appeared two days ago at the links provided by Citizens News Daily, the popular conservative news link farm that has taken over the position on the Right once held by the Drudge Report, which was sold, or taken over by Trump-haters, or something. The CND link (still) reads, “Nikki Haley — Climate change is causing Illegal Immigration, ” and went to this story at Breitbart. The typically Breitbart-y headline reads, “Nikki Haley Parroted Leftist Talking Point Suggesting Climate Change to Blame for Mass Immigration.”

The story is, as you should know, aimed at potential Haley supporters in the imminent Iowa caucus, as the anti-Trump forces in the media and elsewhere have settled on the former South Carolina governor as their best last-ditch, long-shot option to bump Donald Trump from the GOP presidential ticket. (Since DeSantis has crashed, they are probably right.) Breitbart and the report’s author John Binder know that most Republicans detest the progressive secular religion of climate change terror and its natural progression to world government.

The headline at Breitbart should set anyone’s properly-tuned ethics alarms a-clanging, for it is full of tell-tale clues that this is not journalism, but a biased hit job. First we get the misleading verbiage that doesn’t include the key information about whether she “parroted” yesterday or when she was in the 6th grade. “Parroted” does its part: it is a deliberately pejorative term suggesting that Haley is being controlled by the hated Left. Then we get “talking points”: the inference is that Haley is somehow on a master list that the DNC and other cliamte change fear-mongers send their carefully worked out propaganda statements for public dissemination. Next comes the head-exploding “Climate Change to Blame for Mass Immigration.” What? That’s certainly idiotic: I’d rank it close to Donald Trump’s recently stated delusion that magnets don’t work under water, but worse: not understanding magnetism isn’t likely to lead to bad policies, but being a climate change hysteric will.

The actual article doesn’t support any of the innuendos in the headline, but Breitbart is counting on the impact its deceit will have on the large number of Americans who only read what’s above a news story rather than the story itself.

The supposedly damning statement by Haley came seven years ago when she went before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to be confirmed as ambassador to the United Nations. She needed Democrat votes to be confirmed, and had to respond to partisan grandstanding questions like the one Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) gave her: 

“We are already seeing the impacts of climate change on the ground around the world — 2016 was the hottest year on record (and 15 of the 16 warmest years have been since 2000). Some countries have already relocated citizens due to climate change, creating the world’s first climate refugees. Extreme drought in the Middle East and even small amounts of sea level rise in parts of Asia are likely to displace tens of millions of people, and Western nations have been asked to accept some of the displaced people. Do you agree that the rise in refugees presents a unique national security threat that requires international solutions? What do you view as the role of the U.N. and the United States in aiding with climate refugees around the world?”

Haley had to answer the question. Agreeing with Merkley would lose her Republican support; saying “I believe climate-change is over-hyped, politicized hooey being used by internationalists to get the U.S. to surrender its national sovereignty for ‘the greater good'” would doom her with the Friends of Greta Thunberg. So she carefully tiptoed around the question without answering it:

“If confirmed I commit to engaging experts at the State Department and the U.N. on the issues of climate change and refugee resettlement. The U.N. plays a significant role in the management of refugees on a global basis. If confirmed, the role that climate change plays in refugee flows is an issue I look forward to assessing, and assisting refugees is a U.S. policy in which I look forward to engaging.”

She did not “suggest” that climate change was “to blame” for illegal immigration. Legitimate refugees are not illegal immigrants; the fact that the Axis of Unethical Conduct (“the resistance,” Democrats and the MSM) deliberately blur the definitions of “immigrants, ” “migrants,” “undocumented” and “refugees” doesn’t mean that Haley can’t use the word “refugees”correctly. Saying that she will “engage” experts—Haley is a skilled weasel, and “engage” is a terrific weasel word—commits her to nothing but getting a range of opinions and listening to them. Democrats are the ones who like to hold that government is obligated to do what “experts” recommend, because the Left has largely captured academia. “The role that climate change plays in refugee flows is an issue I look forward to assessing” simply means that Haley will consider it; it doesn’t preclude her from reaching the conclusion that climate change plays no role in “refugee flow” whatsoever.

Ethics verdict: the Breitbart story and headline were deliberately misleading, and designed undermine Haley in the Iowa caucuses.

Typical.