I didn’t paste two different sections together, that’s literally how it goes. China official is like “it’s a weather balloon, you fucking morons.” and the article just ignores that and keeps going, not directly saying the official is lying, but doing a very weaselly thing where they say “China has used local services in the past for spying so…connect the dots yourself audience.”

Multiple news articles have already admitted that it was just a weather balloon and were ignored by the public, I guess they’re sticking with this bullshit because it generates clicks. People in the US want an easy villain to hate, they go to sleep dreaming of all the death and destruction that the US could inflict on its enemies. This might seem mild, but them ignoring the most basic facts and trying to turn a total non-event into one of the biggest issues of the year is terrifying, they’re champing at the bit to start a war with China and don’t care if it would literally end all life on earth if they did so. Monstrous.