PrairiePundit

 Trending Politics: ... A feeble attempt by CNN fact-checkers to call out lies in President Donald Trump’s speech before Congress fell flat after a White House spokesperson brought the receipts to prove that the network was being biased in its assessment. One of the president’s most notable lines Tuesday night came when declaring that the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency had located $8 million spent by the Biden administration’s National Institutes of Health to “make mice transgender.” The line received a hearty laugh from lawmakers, but CNN immediately went to work seeking to debunk the finding. Reporter Deidre McPhillips wrote a lengthy fact-check article that initially focused on three studies identified by DOGE. One grant for $299,940 from the National Cancer Institute aimed to “compare breast cancer rates among female mice and those receiving testosterone therapy.” Separately, two grants from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases totaling $455,120 f...

 Political Insider: Author Matt Palumbo Exposes in New Book How the Left Weaponized the Fact-Checking Industry ...  Given the near-religious reverence by liberal journalists and politicians alike, Palumbo takes a hammer to their golden calves and reveals to Americans across all party lines how certain “reputable” organizations are actually weaponizing liberal narratives to make them appear as truths instead of objectively giving people the straight answers. ... It is wise to be wary of liberals claiming to be fact-checkers. 

 Daily Caller: The Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler on Monday gave President Joe Biden a “bottomless Pinocchio” as part of a roundup of the president’s falsehoods. Kessler said he decided to do a roundup of Biden’s misleading or false claims because “readers have asked for fact checks of a variety of recent Biden statements, but none of them seemed big enough for a stand-alone fact check.” “We generally do not award Pinocchios for roundups like this — but for reasons that will become clear, we need to make an exception for the first one,” Kessler wrote. ... Kessler first fact checked a recent claim Biden made in which he said he has spent “more time with Xi Jinping than any other head of state” and has “traveled 17,000 miles with him.” Kessler noted that the Post rated the claim false shortly after Biden took office and that the White House “could not offer an explanation for that number either.” “But it’s noteworthy because, despite our fact check and a White House admission that ...

 David Strom: “Fact checks” are almost always intended to deceive or distract you. During the Trump Administration, every “fact checker” in America needed you to know that every bit of hyperbole Donald Trump spewed out was a “lie,” not an intentional exaggeration for effect and that the Babylon Bee was not a credible news source. Fact checks, in other words, are about spinning you. Misleading you. Burning up straw men and then declaring victory. They are bullcrap, in other words. The latest BS is Reuters spinning the insane decision by the Centers for Disease Control to recommend that all school children be vaccinated in order to attend public schools. While countries around the world–including those Nordic countries that were celebrated as models of wise public policy during COVID–are discouraging or even not allowing COVID vaccination of children in their health systems, the CDC is recommending that they become standard or even required. ... What sparked this controversy, other t...

 Breitbart: The establishment media show a sudden lack of interest in fact-checking President Joe Biden, despite ample opportunities to do so — and despite their obsession with fact-checking President Donald Trump, noted Joe Concha in an op-ed Sunday at  The Hill . In an article titled “Why has fact-checking disappeared under Biden,” Concha  wrote : Fact-checking under President Trump was a bustling business. Seemingly every day, and sometimes by the hour, the 45th president’s every word was scrutinized, which all comes with the job. But under President Biden, fact checkers are enjoying what feels like extended vacations or have simply checked out in terms of scrutinizing the many ways that he is misleading the public. … ...  "Fact checks" were just an excuse o criticize Trump and they will not often critique Biden's lies. 

  Red States: Politifact 'Fact Checkers' Go to Desperate 'Out of Control' Lengths to Protect Stacey Abrams Fact-checkers appear to act like the Pretorian Guard of liberalism and liberals.  The genre continues to discredit itself.

  Epoch Times: An AP ‘Fact-Checker’ Auditions for Biden’s Disinformation Board Democrats seek to discredit '2000 Mules' using their trusted media fact-checkers Fact-checkers have become the least trusted memes in the news business.  They are mostly liberals with a difference of opinion.  See, also: Fact Checking the Fact Checkers: Debunking AP's '2000 Mules' Hit Piece

 Charles Lipson: If you worked really hard, you might be able to come up with an idea as unappealing as a government disinformation board. Voters already distrust the government and are especially concerned about its excessive intrusion and unchecked regulatory power. If you worked even harder, you might find as bad a person to lead it as Nina Jankowicz, a self-styled "disinformation expert" whose real specialty seems to be spreading disinformation to support her left-wing views. If you tried hard to justify this mess, you might come up with a defender as ineffective as Alejandro Mayorkas , the secretary of homeland security. The secretary, already in deep trouble because of the porous southern border, faced a hostile Senate hearing and admitted he knew nothing about Ms. Jankowicz's dismal history of ideological fulminations and partisan statements. He refused to say whose bright idea it was to hire her—only that he was clueless about her background. Still, Mayorkas refu...

  Washington Free Beacon: PANTS ON FIRE: PolitiFact Defiles the Truth   Fundraising email claims website is dedicated to 'holding our leaders accountable.' (Fact check: It is not.) Fact-checkers have their agenda and facts do not always fit it. 

 PJ Media: 'Fact Checkers' Claim Biden Wasn't 'Shaking Hands With Thin Air.' Oh, Really? This looks like another "fact checker" saying "are you going to believe me or your lying eyes?"

  National Pulse: EXCLUSIVE: Politifact Founder Was “Journalist in Residence” at Chinese Communist Influence Group. ... Politifact – blasted by Donald Trump as a “totally left-wing group” – is the go-to fact-checking service for many big tech companies such as Facebook and YouTube . The website is also used by other reporters to confirm or deny stories, and Politifact primarily appears to target the political right. ... I do not have a lot of confidence in so-called fact-checkers in general.  They tend to act like they are writing briefs for the left. 

 Roll Call: It’s been another bad week for the president, as White House staffers, and Biden himself on Monday, tried to clean up a string of troubling gaffes made during his crucial trip to meet with NATO leaders as the Ukraine war continued to rage. With Russian President Vladimir Putin hinting that a nuclear response was possible if NATO directly intervenes in Ukraine or threatens Russia itself, Biden’s misstatements couldn’t have come at a worse moment. Yet, when asked about his ad-lib remarks to American servicemen in Poland, his response to the possible use of chemical weapons by Russia, and now, famously, his barely nuanced call for the ousting of Putin, incredulously, Biden told reporters, “None of the three occurred.” It was a mind-boggling moment. Even the president’s supporters in the media are having trouble excusing Biden’s latest attempt to explain away his gaffes, which sent shock waves across international diplomatic and security circles. The world is wondering who ...

  Newsbusters: Column: The Unanimously Liberal Tilt of the 'Fact Checkers' The piece examines the responses of "fact-checkers" to the recent hearing on Biden's nomination for a Supreme court seat and finds that they collectively sound like they are writing briefs for her defense.

 Newsbusters: So-called fact-checkers should be eating crow following authentication of the emails from Hunter Biden’s notorious laptop by The New York Times. But a new analysis shows they’re being as brazen as ever by not updating old articles challenging the credibility of the story. Leftist fact-checkers like FactCheck.org , PolitiFact and Lead Stories published stories within the past two years that tried to take down the New York Post bombshell . The outlets did this by either referring to the story as coming from “questionable sources;” labeling the emails as “unverified” or outright doubting their authenticity. The Times reported that emails from a cache discovered on Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop in Delaware “were authenticated by people familiar with them” and tied the documents to an ongoing federal investigation. It has been 12 days since The Times released its report on the Biden laptop, and FactCheck.org, PolitiFact and LeadStories still haven't updated certain ar...

 Thomas Lifson: Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is having a rough week with Senator Ted Cruz.  Her vastly inflated opinion of her own intelligence has once again led her out on a limb that Cruz is only too willing and able to saw off for her. In case you missed it, do take a look at her attempt to denigrate the Texas senator that  ended disastrously  for her.  This time, she was not aiming at Cruz, but rather, in her boasting about herself, she provided evidence that incriminated Democrat Senator Dick Durbin and assorted media "fact-checkers" for lying about Cruz. AOC released a video in which she bragged about getting stimulus money to "huge amounts" of illegals. We fought tooth and nail for the inclusion of undocumented people in relief packages, stimulus checks, FEMA assistance. And we've actually helped huge amounts of undocumented families in our district get federal relief that many others were trying to lock them out of. ...   When ...

 Washington Free Beacon: The Biden administration thinks you, the American people, are stupid. That much is clear given its response this week to a Washington Free Beacon report exposing the administration's plan to "fund the distribution of crack pipes to drug addicts as part of its plan to advance ‘racial equity.'" Despite confirming the details of reporter Patrick Hauf's story, the Department of Health and Human Services subsequently determined—more than 24 hours after publication—that the story was "blatant misinformation." A spokesperson offered no evidence to support this claim. Asked for clarification, the spokesperson responded 10 hours later to denounce once again the report as "misleading and misinformed" but offered no evidence as justification. Media "fact-checkers" willingly repurposed the administration's talking points in an attempt to discredit our reporting. Not surprisingly, the result was an incoherent mess . S...

 PJ Media: Controversy has exploded about claims being made on the right that the federal government was pushing a grant plan that was going to spend $30 million on “harm reduction” for drug addicts. Handing out clean syringes and alcohol swabs has been done for years — with mixed results. But this program was going to try and reduce injury and death from smoking drugs like crack. The story in the Washington Free Beacon on Monday was straight reporting with very little commentary. The  headline read:  “Biden Admin To Fund Crack Pipe Distribution To Advance ‘Racial Equity” and contained this quote from “an HHS official.” ... Were pipes really to be included in the “smoking kits”? The way the story is written it would certainly suggest that’s the case. But the White House is strenuously denying the idea that they’re going to give glass crack pipes to addicts. ... The "fact-checkers" may believe the White House, but I have my doubts. 

 Just the News: The fact-checking industry, empowered by the vast resources of social media giants, is under sustained scrutiny amid a possible legal battle among the British Medical Journal, Facebook owner Meta and a contractor it pays to flag purported COVID-19 misinformation. Facebook stopped some readers from sharing a BMJ investigation of "data integrity" issues in a Pfizer COVID vaccine trial, BMJ editors wrote in an  open letter to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg  in November. It also slapped "missing context" labels on posts that went through, warning users they could be penalized for sharing the article. Contractor Lead Stories seemed more interested, however, in promoting guilt by association and policing political views than checking the facts, the journal's editors wrote in a blistering  New Statesman op-ed  last week. The disputes have major implications for the public's ability to follow ongoing scientific debates around COVID, especially on masks, v...

 PJ Media: ... Make no mistake about it; Joe Biden isn’t angry about the high cost of insulin. Why not? Because he is responsible for it. On his first day in office, Biden froze a Trump drug policy that had been  finalized in December 2020 , and which would have significantly lowered prescription drug prices, including those of insulin and epinephrine. The freeze was part of a blanket policy of the new Biden administration to reverse and scrutinize anything that Trump had done. Many media fact-checkers ran cover for Biden,  arguing that Trump’s insulin order had only been frozen, not scrapped.  “Biden did freeze an executive order signed by Trump that was aimed at lowering the cost of insulin and injectable epinephrine that was not yet in effect,”  Newsweek  noted. But,  the Biden administration officially rescinded the policy in October,  claiming that implementation of the policy would have imposed “ excessive administrative costs and ...

  Dinesh D'Souza: A few days ago, I got an email from a fact-checker at PolitiFact. His name is Bill McCarthy. He said he was checking a quotation from me taken from my appearance on the “Ingraham Angle” on Fox News. We had an exchange of emails that gives a very interesting window into the otherwise obscure world of fact-checking. ... Here’s what I said on Fox: “If you follow Jan. 6 at the granular level with the facts that are coming out slowly, they are coming out because the government has been very reluctant to release footage, particularly footage of what happened in the tunnel on Jan. 6, where you now begin to see these cops using massive amounts of force against unarmed Trump supporters, including women. The death of Rosanne Boyland is now being called into question. Was she the second Trump supporter that was killed by the authorities?” McCarthy asked me to corroborate the facts alluded to in my statement, so I sent him a series of videos from inside the tunnel on Jan. 6, ...