This was another week where you couldn’t swing a dead cat without hitting a potential Lexicon entry. Although I’m not sure why you would want to swing a dead cat around, but I’m not here to kink shame. Let your freak flag fly, baby!
Out of all the potential subjects, one really stood out for me. In a move that shocked, well, not that many people, Mark Zuckerberg announced Meta and all the social media sites under it would be moving away from its “fact checking” model (which literally fact-checked obvious jokes, thus making the model itself a joke) and moving more towards a Community Notes standard like what is being used on the Social Media Site Formerly Known As Twitter. This got Leftists all atwitter (or would that be aX) at the notion. Journalists (0r whatever the fuck Brian Stelter is) and Leftist hacks were up in arms at Zuck’s decision.
Which obviously means it was the right decision.
And it makes it perfect for a Leftist Lexicon entry.
fact checking
What the Left thinks it means – a vital service that should only be done by professionals
What it really means – finding out the truth and calling out the lies
One of the hardest things about being informed today is knowing who you can trust. Modern journalism is a hodgepodge of shitty sources sucking up to even shittier people so they can get invited to dinner parties with yet even shittier people. The Fourth Estate has become Leftist stenographers more than the bulldogs that will relentlessly seek the truth. Anymore, any journalists are lucky to stumble into the truth, and even then there’s a better than average chance they’ll completely miss it.
On its face, the idea of fact checking is a good thing, especially given the modern journalism as described above. We want to be informed, or at the very least seem informed to impress others. To that end, we look for sources that break things down for us and teach us things we didn’t know. With the sheer deluge of information sources, it’s hard to find a way to control the output of the fire hose.
Enter the fact checkers, doing the research for you so you don’t have to! It’s so easy and cheap to do, it’s a wonder why people don’t do this more often!
And that’s the problem.
When you pawn off anything you should do yourself, you are subject to the outcomes the other party produce. It’s like when you hire a contractor who farms out the work to a subcontractor. The job may get done, but it may not up to the standards the contractor has. Then it becomes a matter of people pointing fingers at one another trying to figure out who’s responsible for the kitchen sink being put in the attic.
When it comes to information, it’s a lot harder to fix the fuckups, mainly because no one wants to take responsibility for your being misinformed. You don’t want to admit you were a dumbass for believing a fact checker. The fact checker doesn’t want to admit fault because a) it looks reaaaallllly bad when a fact checker can’t figure out the truth, and b) it hurts their widdle fee-fees. The entity that hired the fact checkers doesn’t want to take the hit for the reasons mentioned above and because it erodes the trust the entity has, which ultimately costs them money.
In other words, when you rely on fact checkers to do your research for you, more often than not, you’re their bitch.
Then, there’s the lovely little problem of bias. In the early days of Facebook fact checking, the people doing it leaned so far left they were parallel to the ground while standing up. Once that got called out, Zuck tried to balance out the fact checkers and the checking itself, but only made it worse because some of the fact checkers had bias issues. Not a good look, kids!
Regardless of which side of the political/ideological aisle you’re on, bias fucks up your ability to be truly informed because it limits your scope of information sources. Social media has turned us back into a tribalistic society where anyone who deviates from what you consider to be normal, just, and right is an infidel and, thus, not even worthy of even basic human decency. When you face information from one of those “unclean” sources that contradicts your mindset, you have two choices: adapt, or reject.
I bring this up to underscore the problem with biased fact checking. If you have the opinion information from one side or the other is untrue (regardless of whether it’s factual), you are going to more inclined to reject it. And if you have the power to shape what other people see on a social media website like…oh I don’t know…Facebook, you are going to be tempted to hide the “bad” information and go after those who want it to be known.
There’s an old saying that applies here…something about absolute power and corruption…I’m sure it will come to me.
Anyway, the Facebook fact checkers fell into this trap, which caused a lot of accounts to get warnings, suspensions, and even terminations. And in some cases, actual news stories shared online got slapped with misinformation tags (I’m looking at you, Hunter Biden) and were subsequently suppressed. Oh, and I forgot to mention Zuck said he got pressure from the Brick Tamland Administration to suppress the laptop story.
And who got punished for suppressing this legitimate news story? The entities who shared it. I mean, why would people who actively worked towards misinformation by absence see any punishment for making people misinformed? That’s just crazy talk, man!
But it also exposes the danger of trusting fact checkers without verifying whether what they’re saying is factual. Just because you tell me you’re honest doesn’t mean I’m not gonna test you. And you shouldn’t just trust and believe either. News stories that sound too good to be true should be the first ones that should make your Bullshit Meter light up like the…biological discharges…in an hourly rate hotel room when you scan it with a blacklight flashlight.
Not that I know anything about that, mind you…
This is going to be a bit of an ask, but it’s going to make more sense if you do it. Question all of your sources while reaching out for alternative sources from a wider array of ideologies. Then, let common sense be your guide. If something sounds factual and makes sense, be open to accepting it. If something sounds like more full of bullshit than the world’s largest cattle ranch, then don’t trust it. Consider it mental calisthenics that will make you stronger, faster, better. And without the need for bionics!
I would be remiss if I didn’t point out how the typical Leftist sources are so upset Mark Zuckerberg is going in a new direction with fact checking. The way it was set up initially, the Left had the power over what got considered factual. Now, thanks to the advent and popularity of Community Notes, they no longer control the flow of information and can be called out for pushing misinformation while pretending to guard against it. And if you’re a Leftist media shill, the worst thing you can do is strip them of the power and the prestige of being information brokers and letting the hoi polloi point and laugh when you fuck up.
If I may offer a suggestion, media folks, maybe stop parroting Leftist squawking points and start doing your fucking jobs. There’s a reason used car salesmen are considered more trustworthy than the media and their fact checkers these days, and I can draw a pretty clear conclusion as to why. But I’m sure if you really put your hivemind to it, you’ll figure it out by the end of January.
Of the year 3843.
Category: Uncategorized
Leftist Lexicon Word of the Week
With Christmas right around the corner (please check local listings for the time and location of Christmas), people are exchanging presents, cards, well-wishes, and other wonderful holiday items. But the Left? They’re exchanging insults over Elon Musk.
Again.
Considering this is an almost hourly occurrence, we shouldn’t be surprised, but this time the Left has gone and made Musk into…co-President! While the Left has their collectivist panties in a wad, I wanted to delve into this concept a bit further, mainly because it shows the Left has the attention span of a goldfish on crack.
co-President
What the Left thinks it means – Elon Musk, an unelected man who wields unprecedented power in the incoming Trump Administration
What it really means – a term that could cover anyone with sway over the President
The concept of a co-President is kinda amusing when you really think about it (and I have because I have a lot of downtime in my personal life), and the Left have made it even more amusing by really leaning into it. They see Musk as the man controlling Trump’s strings, while at the same time claiming Trump is the puppet master of his followers. Although anyone who has seen Trump give a speech can tell you he’s about as controllable as a Chihuahua/pit bull mix on a steady diet of truck stop speed, energy drinks, and, oh yeah, PCP.
So, the concept of Musk controlling Trump as his co-President is funny at its face because of how utterly detached from reality you have to be to believe it. Musk has Trump’s ear for sure, but that doesn’t mean he has control over the incoming Commander in Chief. Until such time as evidence comes out that Musk is secretly cloning Trump so he can get his way, I’m gonna stay over on the not-that-fucking-crazy side.
And the best part? We would have to go allllllll the way back to 1993 to find the first modern reference of someone being a co-President. Ah, 1993. America was still enthralled by grunge and club music. The uniform of the day was flannel and oversized pants. Boy bands were still a good 5 years away or so. And the genius who introduced us to the concept of a co-President?
Bill “The Commander In Briefs” Clinton.
On the campaign trail, ole Slick Willie talked about if he got elected, the country would get Hillary Clinton as a “two-for-one deal.” Although this might be a good deal for Bill at any of his favorite brothels, it wasn’t that good of a deal for the rest of us. Hillary was put in charge of healthcare reform, and promptly sucked at it. But don’t worry. She was young and hadn’t truly embraced her ability to fuck shit up yet.
Now, Billy Boy wasn’t the first President to take influence from someone other than his staff, and he certainly won’t be the last. The thing is there’s a vast difference between having influence and actually using it. Did Hillary influence Bill’s decision-making at times? Undoubtedly. Who do you think gave Bill the idea to make Madeleine Albright Secretary of State and send her to talks with Muslim countries?
Spoiler Alert: It was the dumbass who used a prop Reset button to signal a new positive relationship with Russia.
Then, we had George W. Bush, a man so hated by the Left he was accused of being a puppet to Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, the Koch Brothers, the 1992 Denver Broncos, and just about everyone else. Although I think I might have missed out on my turn because I have this great idea of what to do with the IRS. Oh, well. Maybe next time!
With Barack Obama, it’s harder to pin down whether Michelle Obama had any more power than previous First Ladies, but I get the feeling she wore the pants in the family. She would have to in order to keep her balls from falling out. (Kidding!)
Now, with the most recent President, it’s a lot easier to pin down who had the President’s ear. In fact, President Brick Tamland may have been the first co-de-President ever.
Hmmm…it seems like co-Presidents occur when…weak-ass Leftist “men” are in charge. I’m sure it’s just a coincidence, though. I mean, how likely would it be that Leftist man after Leftist man would be that incompetent, right?
And it makes perfect sense for the Left to project their issues onto Trump because they’re that fucking stupid. Oh, and it make them feel better about having complete wimps be their male standard bearers in politics. To them, weakness is strength, incompetence is competence, and an utter shitshow is normal.
I’m starting to think the Left is more influenced by George Orwell than George Soros these days.
Meanwhile, this attitude creates a paradox. If we were to follow the Left’s logic on this (and for God’s sake why would you), being a co-President is only bad when the Left is out of power, but it’s ho-hum when the Left is in power. This goes back to something the Left believes with all of their heart: anyone not like them is a fucking idiot and, thus, easily manipulated by bad players.
My irony meter broke after typing that, mainly because the Left doesn’t recognize they’re doing what they accuse the Right of doing. Oh, and they’re fucking idiots.
And we should keep this in mind when thinking about the entire co-President concept, especially that last part. The fact the Left is so concerned with unelected people having so much power, presumed or otherwise, shows how freaked out they get when they’re not the unelected people having the power. Say what you will about Elon Musk, but after the last 4 years of Leftists letting utterly unqualified people have more power than they can handle (I’m looking at you, Pete Buttigieg), he should be the least of our worries. He’s not a co-President any more than Melania Trump is and shouldn’t be considered as such.
Besides, if Leftists were concerned about unelected people with a lot of power, they would be against bureaucrats.
Not Down With the Sickness
It used to bother me when Leftists would use “It’s the current year and I can’t believe we have to talk about X” (X being their cause du jour, not the Social Media Site Formerly Known As Twitter), but I have to use it in this case.
It’s 2024, and I can’t believe we have to talk about how murder is wrong.
I’m referring to the recent shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. While some cooler heads have decided murder is wrong because, well, it’s fucking murder, other heads have tried to add nuance to the situation as a means to explain it in terms of a larger narrative, that being health insurance companies and American healthcare in general sucks ass. Such intellectual giants like Taylor Lorenz, Elizabeth Warren, and many online Leftists have said the killer (who I will not name because he doesn’t deserve to be named as far as I’m concerned) was justified in killing Thompson for the reason I mentioned earlier.
In other words, there are a lot of dumbasses making hay out of this with the end goal being health insurance and by extension healthcare gets better. Sort of the “you can’t make an omelet without breaking some CEOs” approach.
And on the surface, the Left seems to have a point. How many families have had to deal with deaths based on insurance denials? More than I care to count. That pain of loss can turn to anger very quickly, and that anger can spur people to act.
In this case, it spurred a young man to kill.
No matter how you try to spin it, justify it, kinda justify it, soften it, or add nuance to it, a man is dead because a young man felt justified to kill another person. And that is fucked up. What’s just as fucked up is the number of people who are still cheering the act or treating anyone who thinks murder is bad as weirdos.
We have reached the Upside Down, kids. And it only gets worse.
Here’s the thing Leftists cheering the murder don’t understand. Once you open the door to killing people for whatever reason you can invent, you might as well take off the hinges because you ain’t closing that door ever again. While you think it’s hunky dory to off a CEO of a health insurance company, it leaves you defenseless if some right wing asshole decides to off a Leftist CEO for whatever reason. And, Spoiler Alert, that never ends well for anyone.
See World Wars I and II for evidence.
What’s more disturbing to me is how this situation reveals not just how easy it is for people today to dehumanize people they don’t like, but in just how little the people doing the loudest cheering understand about the insurance industry. Without giving away too much, I’ve been in the insurance game for a shade under a decade, and I’ve been insured for far longer. And, yes, I have had claims I felt were valid denied for reasons I don’t agree with. But here’s the difference.
I didn’t take it out on those who denied the claim at any level.
On a deeper level, though, the denial process is a bit more complicated than what the Left thinks or feels it is. Sure, UnitedHealthcare was using AI to deny a lot of claims recently, but that doesn’t touch on the entire process by a long shot. Many insurance claims, regardless of the policy type, go through men and women called adjusters. It’s their jobs to research the validity of the claim, determine the risk as compared to the policy terms, and render a decision and, ideally, some form of payment in an attempt to make everyone whole.
With health insurance, that’s a little trickier. Not only do you have all the little things I just mentioned, but you also have to work with hospitals, medical facilities, and even your local mom-and-pop doctor’s office. With so many hands involved in the process, a lot of humanity gets lost in red tape. Some of that can be attributed to insurance companies, some to the medical providers, and a lot to the legal framework by which everyone involved but the patient is governed.
That’s right, kids. Government rears its ugly head yet again.
Any national insurance company has to deal with state insurance boards as a condition of being allowed to sell policies in said states. And they are as picky as the IRS when it comes to following regulations. The rules themselves will make you cross your eyes while you’re trying to cross your Ts.
And I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the clusterfuck that was Obamacare. While Leftists lament the alleged lack of qualifications of Donald Trump’s nominees for different federal positions, they were perfectly fine letting dumbasses with zero experience and even less understanding of health insurance made sweeping decisions that affected millions of people. And it only made the prices jump and the quality decline for many of them. So…yay?
What the Left fails to realize (among sooooooo many things) is how the actions they supported then lead to the situation that lead to a man being murdered. But they’re lining up to cheer the results without owning up to that little detail.
Furthermore, what they’re cheering now opens the door to another question: what will they do to the adjusters making the decisions on health insurance claims? Are they ever going to be the targets of Leftist assholes, or will it be limited to CEOs, who don’t have a direct line to the decisions the adjusters are making? Judging from the “wanted” posters going up, the Leftists are only gunning for the big wigs.
Fucking brilliant.
Of course, the Leftist line of “if it causes just a little bit of change, it’ll be worth it” comes out like penalty flags whenever Patrick Mahomes gets breathed on wrong this season. The thing is…not much will change. The insurance companies will have to hire more security, which will get passed along to the customers in the form of higher premiums and may make said insurance companies rethink whether they want to insure people in some states to avoid risk. Thus, leading to more denials and more people getting kicked off their health insurance policies, leading to more people being forced to pick up shitty Obamacare and potentially spend more than they were before.
If Leftists think this makes the case for single-payer government health insurance, they’re dumber than two bags of hammers, and they can suck a bag of dicks while they try to figure out why it doesn’t.
However, there is one way to really stick it to insurance companies, and it’s so simple even Leftists can understand it. It’s called “paying your own way.” If you don’t have to submit a claim to your health insurance company, they don’t have a say in whether your claim will be approved or denied. Plus, it saves doctors time having to deal with insurance companies and filling out endless amounts of paperwork, meaning they can spend more time working on your problems and the problems of anyone else who takes the same tack.
But won’t that make things more expensive? Not necessarily. With some treatments it will, but with others it might make them less expensive or at least give medical providers more incentive to work with you on payments. Why, it’s almost as if cutting out the middle man passes savings directly to you!
Of course, capitalists understood this concept centuries ago, but I’ll give the Left a little more time to grasp it. But I’m not holding my breath.
Meanwhile, there seems to be a disturbing trend. A recent poll showed that over 40% of younger voters aged 18 to 29 surveyed thought the shooting was justified. That number dropped to 23% with voters 30-39. Think about that for a moment. The people who might be taking care of us in the near future are okay offing someone. Hopefully time and maturity will fix that. If not, I get the feeling we’ll be heading down a very dark path in this country and Brian Thompson’s murder of will seem like a walk in the park.