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Again the Gaza war thread was the most active thread of the day yesterday. The most active thread after that one was somewhat related. Titled, "Capitol currently in lockdown" and posted in the "Metropolitan DC Local Politics" forum, the thread is about a lockdown of the US Capitol building that resulted from a demonstration at the Democratic National Committee headquarters. Both this thread and much of the media reporting of the story show how a distorted understanding of events can become widespread. Semafor reporter David Weigel was at the DNC when events occurred. He posted a considerable amount of video of what took place on X (formerly Twitter). In addition, other witnesses also made video available. Based on first-hand reports which are supported by video, what occurred was that a group of peaceful demonstrators consisting of members of mostly Jewish peace groups who support a ceasefire in Gaza blocked all or almost all doors of the DNC headquarters. This building is located about 3 blocks from the Capitol grounds and is not part of the Capitol complex. The protesters stood with their backs to the doors and locked arms in a human chain. They made no attempt to enter the building. Police tried to pull the protesters away, but this was made difficult due to their interlocked arms. Police appeared to get frustrated and angry and became more violent as time went on. In addition, at least one of the doors was at the top of a set of stairs. As police pulled protesters away from the door and shoved them down the steps, some protesters fell. The scene grew very chaotic as police struggling with protesters who were resisting being removed intermixed with one another with police doing a lot of pushing and shoving. Video and photographic evidence shows one police officer unleashing pepper spray at the protesters. None of the protesters were shown to be using pepper spray and none of the witnesses reported such a thing. Other than Weigel, I don't think any reporters from major media outlets were on the scene. They, therefore, had to rely on second-hand information and many led with an account by Congressman Brad Sherman that was extremely misleading. Sherman accused the protesters of being "pro-terrorist" and "pepper spraying police officers and attempting to break into the building." None of this is supported by either first-hand accounts or photographic evidence. In fact, as I have said, the opposite appears to be true. This sort of misleading report was circulated widely and became the basis of many people's understanding of the event. Right-leaning posters in this thread seized on the misleading account to compare the protest to the January 6 insurrection led by former President Donald Trump. Pro-Israel posters challenged the authenticity of the Jewish organizations behind the protest. But, soon enough the thread went completely off-topic in several different directions. At that point, I locked the thread.