On the Left: Leftmedia/BIG Tech / Mark Alexander / February 19, 2021
Fact-Checking the Leftmedia 'Fact-Checkers'
USA Today has not corrected the factual errors in its own fact check.
The Patriot Post is often the target of unfounded social media "fact-checks" and "missing context" claims. In every case, we are deemed "guilty until proven innocent," and it's almost impossible to get redress from any of the social media outlets. There is another "missing context" claim to tell you about, but first…
Let me tell you about how the so-called "fact-checkers" have been checking on the Biden/Harris regime. You may have heard that the mass media and BIG Tech First Amendment suppressors have a slight leftist bias… Fact is, beyond their political agenda, fact checking is a myth.
For example, this week, Joe Biden repeated a litany of ludicrous ChiCom Virus pandemic lies in a CNN "town hall" event. Among them he declared, "We didn't have [the vaccine] when we came into office."
Now, for us mere mortals, this would have resulted in a costly strike, but in Biden's case, WaPo's head fact-checker faker, Glenn Kessler, ran interference for him, blacking out any fact check. (I read somewhere, "Democracy Dies in Darkness." Oh yeah, that is on the WaPo's masthead.)
Kessler claimed the comment was a "verbal stumble, a typical Biden gaffe," adding, "People screw up on live television. Biden with his stutter especially does so."
Fact check WaPo: Biden has already said he does not have a "stutter."
Apparently it was the same "gaffe" script of lies that Kamala Harris used a few days earlier when she repeated, "There was no national strategy or plan for vaccinations." And she added this stutter: "In many ways, we're starting from scratch on something that's been raging for almost an entire year."
Before the White House arbiters of truth could intervene on Harris's behalf, some lowly fact-checkers had rated her comments what they were: False. Even the left-leaning crew at PolitiFact declared it was wrong. But mysteriously, the fact-checks were deleted almost as quickly as they were posted.
Must be nice!
Again, these are not just factual errors; these are outright lies. More to the point, hearing Harris repeat the lie again, former Trump administration economic adviser Larry Kudlow was caught on a hot mic with this assessment: "Bulls—t! Bulls—t! Bulls—t!"
Of course, the Trump administration left the Biden administration a vaccine already in distribution and a robust plan to continue production and distribution. Anthony Fauci, the COVID Godfather, had already refuted the Biden/Harris assertions the day after the inauguration, insisting, "We certainly are not starting from scratch." In fact, this week the daily average for vaccine doses administered has now ramped up to 1.7 million per day. That is not a "Biden/Harris" success story.
So, what was the latest hit against our Patriot Post social media pages?
As you may know, last June, after Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer staged a theatrical kneeling for George Floyd in the Capitol rotunda — which added accelerant to their constituents' burn, loot, and murder "summer of rage" — I started posting tributes to police officers murdered in the line of duty and asking Pelosi and Schumer why they have not taken a knee for them. Of course, George Floyd was just a political prop for Pelosi and Schumer.
Last week, we created a meme image asking that question about Officer Brian Sicknick, but removed it soon after posting to Facebook because, while Pelosi and Schumer did not take a knee for him, I believe they disgracefully used his Capitol rotunda funeral as political fodder, timed as it was to coincide with their Trump impeachment inquisition.
However, on 09 February, after removing the image, USA Today's fact-checker found it on a personal social media page and declared the image was, you guessed it, "missing context." Under the title, "Democratic leaders honored officer Brian Sicknick," she asserted that Pelosi and Schumer did honor him. Our social media director, Andrew Culper, recently wrote that the ubiquitous "missing context" label is now the Big Tech censorship catch-all to hit conservative social media pages.
Notably, USA Today's "missing context" claim asserted up top, "[Officer Sicknick] was struck in the head by a fire extinguisher during the riots and died from his injuries the following day." The writer then asserts, "Misinformation surrounding the Capitol riot has been rampant on social media."
Indeed it has.
Responding to the "fact-checker," we asked for her facts: "A week before you posted your assertion about [Officer Sicknick's] death as fact, CNN reported in their article, 'Investigators struggle to build murder case in death of US Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick,' that despite the oft-repeated claim about his injuries, 'investigators believe that early reports that he was fatally struck by a fire extinguisher are not true.'" Even The New York Times quietly corrected its 08 January post making the "fire extinguisher" assertion — but not until after the Demos' closing impeachment arguments — which relied, in part, on the Times's false narrative. (I am sure the timing of the Times's correction was just coincidental…)
We asked the "fact-checker" to back up her facts. No response.
We also asked the fact-checker, for the sake of transparency, to disclose whom she supported for president in 2016 and 2020. No response.
Finally, we inquired about a note at the bottom of her article: "Our fact check work is supported in part by a grant from Facebook." We asked, "By way of full disclosure, please advise how much funding or other support you and your organization receive from Facebook." No response.
As of this writing, the factual errors in the USA Today "fact-check" have not been corrected.
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Brian Sicknick