Naples News reporter Ana
Ceballos shunned all journalistic integrity with a misleading, defamatory
article about Congressman DeSantis and the David Horowitz Freedom Center
Ana Ceballos’s recent
piece lies about Congressman Ron DeSantis and slanders the David Horowitz Freedom Center and makes most fake
news look good by comparison. Ceballos claimed that DeSantis, in an appearance
at the event the Freedom Center holds every year at the Breakers Hotel in Palm
Beach, had, among other sins, “suggested killing Muslims.”
The exact quote from his
speech about the threat of terrorism, as Ceballos must have known, was not
about Muslims at all. “You can kill the terrorist,” DeSantis said, “and we
should kill the terrorist. But unless you attack the underlying ideology that
fuels terrorism, there will be new terrorists that will come forward.” To
further her Big Lie, Ceballos did not mention that immediately following this
statement, DeSantis spoke at length about the coalition Americans must build
with peaceful Muslims like Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.
In other words, DeSantis
wants terrorists to be dead so that non-extremist Muslims can live in peace.
This has been U.S. policy since before 9-11. In addition to her mendacious
claims about DeSantis, Ceballos also attacks the David Horowitz Freedom Center
itself. To substantiate her implication that the Freedom Center is racist and
reactionary, she cites the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), which she claims
“tracks hate groups and white nationalists.”
This shows how sloppy and
irresponsible Ceballos’s journalism is. Did she not know that four days before
her piece appeared in the Naples News, the SPLC was forced to pay $3.3 million
and issue an apology to the Quilliam Foundation for calling it an anti-Muslim
hate group in the same database where it makes a similar accusation against the
Freedom Center? Did she not know that over 60 groups stigmatized by the SPLC
are considering launching a major defamation lawsuit against the organization
and that even liberal commentator Bill Maher has said that he would like to
join such an effort?
Ceballos’s article on Congressman
DeSantis and the David Horowitz Freedom Center is itself an example of the hate
speech it pretends to censure. If it had appeared as an opinion piece, it would
have indicted only Ceballos herself. The fact that it appeared as a news story
indicts the Naples News. What could have possessed it to publish such a vile
and shoddy piece?
David Horowitz is a
noted conservative commentator and New York
Times bestselling author. He is the founder and CEO of the David Horowitz
Freedom Center in Los Angeles and the author of The Black Book of the
American Left.