Unconscionable Predictability

Here at the blog  we wrote to explain a little context behind just how Backpage was converted into a human trafficking and prostitution enterprise, with men like Tony Ortega doing much of the heavy lifting to sell the idea to the public.

For six years Tony Ortega lived off the money directly generated through sex trafficking, much of it from minors. Unlike so much of Ortega’s reporting, this story is not based on hearsay or slanderous gossip. These are ‘on the record’ facts which not even an inveterate liar like Ortega could deny.

Just as we have been seeing in our previous examination of public responses to the biased fictionalized stories Tony Ortega was writing about when he was employed by the Kansas City Pitch and the Phoenix New Times, public reaction to Tony Ortega’s gross dereliction of journalistic duty while shilling for the pimps at the Backpage was swift and unequivocal.

When first confronted Tony Ortega did what he always does — he tried to deny it, pretending it was all made up. When that didn’t work, he went to step two in the propagandist playbook and tried to play the victim card, claiming these charges made against his good friends and employers running the Backpage sex trafficking operation were being inflated by religious campaigners and moral scolds with ulterior motives.

Understandably, this misdirection by Ortega didn’t work either.

Left with no options remaining, Tony Ortega played the only card he had left in the deck — attack, attack, attack. Like a rabid pit bull, Ortega lashed out at any journalists who mentioned the story, mocking and abusing in hopes that he might silence them.

When even that proved a fruitless avenue of pursuit, Tony Ortega showed himself to be the true scoundrel he is and began trying to poison public opinion of the victims. He did all he could to dehumanize them by calling them “underage prostitutes”.

Not trafficked individuals being bought and sold like commodities, which they were.

Not the vulnerable being exploited by the powerful, which they were.

Not even innocent child victims, which they most certainly were.

It’s unconscionable that Tony Ortega would paint the children victimized at the hands of his Backpage cronies as being the true villains.

And yet, given who Tony Ortega has consistently demonstrated himself to be, it is only too predictable that he would.