The mainstream media are often far from a trustworthy guardian of the public's well-being.  The Yellow Press published in 1898 the largely discredited proposition that Spain sabotaged and sank the USS Maine, an accusation that incited the Spanish-American War.  Recent events show that fake news, not from "Russian troll farms," but rather from domestic media sources and also the Democratic Party's nominee for president, is being used to influence the 2020 presidential election.  Here is a list of the misrepresentations, if not flat-out lies, that the media and the Democratic Party's nominee have told about Donald Trump during the past two months.

1. Various media sources said or implied that Trump suggested that people drink or inject themselves with disinfectants such as bleach and Lysol to cure the coronavirus.  Joe Biden supported this misleading narrative.  Trump asked, and the implication was clearly that medical professionals should provide the answers, whether disinfectants or ultraviolet light could be used inside the human body to treat COVID-19.  He mentioned neither bleach nor Lysol, nor did he suggest that people use any medication without a doctor's prescription.
   • The fact that some people have self-medicated with household disinfectants shows only that we can't fix stupid.  Trump is no more responsible for their actions than Marvel Comics is for the Bolivian boys who allowed a spider to bite them in the hope that they would turn into Spider-Man.  Some manufacturers, meanwhile, felt compelled to warn purchasers of Superman costumes that the costumes do not enable the wearers to fly, thus reinforcing the adage, "They walk among us."
   • Compare to Joe Biden, a Delaware attorney who knows or ought to know his state's armed self-defense laws, who encouraged people to fire shotguns into the air to scare off prowlers.
2. Twitter flagged President Trump's tweet that looting leads to shooting as "glorifying violence" when it is a simple statement of fact consistent with basic common sense.  Simple looting, a property-only crime, usually does not justify the use of deadly physical force.  "Deadly force is not authorized to disperse a crowd, stop looting, enforce a curfew, or protect non-designated property."  Looting can however escalate, and has already escalated, to robbery, aggravated (felony) assault on police and civilians, murder, attacking people inside their cars (a violent felony akin to carjacking — recall what happened to Reginald Denny), and arson of occupied homes and businesses.  Violent felonies put people in what the law calls reasonable fear for their lives, which is the standard for self-defense with deadly force.
   • A Philadelphia gun store–owner shot an armed looter who invaded his store and menaced him with a pistol.
   • Here are some looters threatening to set fire to an occupied building ("burn it down").  They are lucky they did not brandish the means of doing it, such as a Molotov cocktail.
   • Looters escalated a pawn store robbery into the murder of a retired black police officer, whose black life clearly did not matter to them the instant they realized he had property they wanted.  We have #justiceforgeorgefloyd, whose (alleged until proven guilty) killer has been arrested and charged.  When is the left going to demand #justicefordaviddorn, or is it going to just stand there and virtue-signal?  Dave Patrick Underwood's black life didn't matter to the rioters, either, and it is noteworthy that the looters are doing the same thing to black-owned businesses today that the Ku Klux Klan did 60 or 70 years ago while vandalizing Jewish synagogues and businesses (can anybody say "Night of the Broken Glass"?), a Catholic cathedral, an Episcopal church, national monuments, and the Veterans Administration.  Vandals even defaced two monuments (one in the U.S. and one in Poland) to the War of Independence hero Tadeusz Kościuszko, who bequeathed property to buy freedom for American slaves long before slavery became socially unacceptable throughout the civilized world.  They also defaced the memorial to "Great Emancipator" Abraham Lincoln.
   • On a side note, which relates to how little the Democrat left really cares about black lives and black livelihoods, Biden campaign staffers are donating money to bail "protesters" out of jail.  Protesters are law-abiding citizens who are exercising a constitutional right, so they do not need bail.  Looters, arsonists, and rioters do.  Trump campaign staffers, meanwhile, raised money to help a retired black firefighter whose business was looted under color of #justiceforgeorgefloyd.
3. The Democratic Party's nominee falsely accused Donald Trump of violating the civil rights of peaceful demonstrators:  "When peaceful protesters are dispersed by the order of the president from the doorstep of the people's house, the White House — using tear gas and flash grenades — in order to stage a photo op at a noble church, we can be forgiven for believing that the president is more interested in power than in principle."  Various media sources have propagated the same false and misleading narrative.
   • The United States Park Police's side of the story shows that Joe Biden is lying about Donald Trump the same way he lied about Curtis Dunn many years ago.  Chief Gregory T. Monahan explained, emphasis is mine, "this past weekend’s demonstrations at Lafayette Park and across the National Mall included activities that were not part of a peaceful protest, which resulted in injuries to USPP officers in the line of duty, the destruction of public property and the defacing of memorials and monuments.  During four days of demonstrations, 51 members of the USPP were injured; of those, 11 were transported to the hospital and released and three were admitted."
   • In addition, "At approximately 6:33 pm, violent protestors on H Street NW began throwing projectiles including bricks, frozen water bottles and caustic liquids. ... [O]fficers found caches of glass bottles, baseball bats and metal poles hidden along the street. ... [M]any of the protestors became more combative, continued to throw projectiles, and attempted to grab officers’ weapons[.]"
   • "Violent protester" is an oxymoron because somebody who uses violence ceases to be a protester and becomes a rioter instead.  Almost everybody in this country protests what happened to George Floyd.  I am solidly in the latter camp, and we should not be equated in any way with the criminals and agitators (including white supremacists, the only people in this country who probably think what happened to George Floyd was acceptable in any way, shape, or form) who are using Floyd as an excuse to incite or perpetrate violence and destruction.

From everything we have seen in the video of George Floyd's death, what happened to him was flat-out wrong.  A police officer who (allegedly until proven guilty) abuses his authority in this manner could do the same thing to any one of us while putting other police at professional risk (the ones with Derek Chauvin were fired and now face criminal charges) or even physical risk and cannot be tolerated by any civilized society.  Nor can any civilized society tolerate the equally monstrous evils that are now being perpetrated in George Floyd's name.

Civis Americanus is the pen name of an American Thinker contributor who remembers the lessons of history and wants to ensure that our country never needs to learn those lessons again the hard way.