Reporter publicly calls out Cruz after he lies about her article to bash Biden

A serious and largely unacknowledged problem that the United States and its democracy faces is the near-constant promotion of easily disproven falsehoods by its Republican politicians. The most embarassing and disgraceful lies often come from men like Ted Cruz, a Harvard Law School graduate who nevertheless is now sharing articles with inciting comments without even reading it first.

On Sunday evening, the Texas Senator shared a CNBC article on the recent slew of Southwest Airline flight cancellations, blaming everything on President Biden and his “illegal vaccine mandate.”

Joe Biden’s illegal vaccine mandate at work!

Suddenly, we’re short on pilots & air traffic controllers.#ThanksJoe https://t.co/wviOzLt7Iv

— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) October 10, 2021

But of course, the article doesn’t say anything of the sort — as the author of the piece was quick to point out:

Hi, Senator. I wrote that article. Where did you hear that there is a shortage due to the vaccine mandate?

— Leslie Josephs (@lesliejosephs) October 11, 2021

It is wildly infuriating to see elected officials spreading fear-mongering lies and misinformation about something as vital as vaccination rates; Cruz and his fellow Republicans are essentially saying they would rather see their own constiuents get sick and die — the vast majority of COVID-19 deaths these days come from red states with low vaccination rates — then lose out on an opportunity to score a few cheap political points or lose out on credibility with a sociopathic radical like Donald Trump.

It turns out the weather and air-traffic control issues were largely responsible for the disruption — but who’s got time for the truth when there’s a disease that’s still killing 1,500 people a day to protect?