Leftist Lexicon Word of the Week

The Leftist world was shaken to its core within the past 2 weeks due to allegations of sexual harassment against New York Governor and the Left’s example of how a state can handle the COVID-19 crisis (more on that later), Andrew Cuomo. As of this writing, three women have come forward to accuse the Governor of inappropriate sexual advances, up to and including unwanted touching. In light of these allegations, the Left have circled the wagons to try to discredit the accusations as politically motivated due to former President Donald Trump’s impending legal case before the state court.

Meanwhile, the rest of us are scratching our heads trying to figure out the new rules about sexual harassment. Is it okay to do what Cuomo did, or is it excusable because Trump did worse more often? If only we had a weekly piece that would explore the Left’s mindset on issues like this…oh, wait!

sexual harassment

What the Left thinks it means – unwanted sexual advances or comments made by men in power that make the victims uncomfortable or frightened of possible reprisal

What it really means – unwanted sexual advances or comments made by men in power that make the victims uncomfortable or frightened of possible reprisal, unless you’re a Leftist

We’ve come a long way since Anita Hill accused Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment, but we’re no closer to making progress on the issue. Powerful men and women have used it to get what they want for decades, and if current events are any indication, it’s still happening. That’s why the #MeToo and #BelieveAllWomen movements got started, folks! Well, that, and it’s easier than a Paris Hilton murder mystery novel plot to appear like you care by tweeting and re-tweeting hashtags.

When it comes to actually doing something about the problem…I guess it depends on who the Left considers an ally. I’m old enough to remember when Senator Bob Packwood was run out of office for chasing a secretary around his desk, and rightly so. Then came Bill Clinton, who was accused of sexual harassment and sexual assault. Certainly worse than chasing a secretary, but not to the Left. They said the accusers weren’t credible, accused them of being money-hungry, and tried to paint the Commander in Briefs as a victim of a “right wing smear.”

Guess what? The Left is doing the same with Cuomo. As inconsistent as they are about what constitutes sexual harassment, they are consistent about recycling bad ideas.

In Cuomo’s case, though, the Left has a bigger target: Donald Trump. Ever since Trump mentioned grabbing women by the puddy tat, the Left has painted him as a sexual predator. As a result, every time a Leftist gets caught doing more than talking about such an act, the Left brings up Trump. I seem to recall there being a term for trying to deflect negative facts by bringing up a tangentially-related person, but I can’t seem to come up with it. What about you, dear reader?

Although I can’t completely discount the possibility of Trump acting like, well, Trump, it doesn’t excuse what Cuomo is alleged to have done. It also doesn’t help Cuomo’s cause that there are photos of him doing what he’s accused of doing, and that the photos support the allegations against him.

But it shows a lot more than the Left wants us to see. For one, it shows us how ugly Cuomo is. I mean, money and power may be aphrodisiacs, but there are limits!

More importantly, though, it shows how far the Left will go to protect their own, even at the expense of optics and ideological consistency. I don’t have the hard data on this yet, but I’m willing to guess a good chunk of the #metoo folks are defending Cuomo by any means necessary at the expense of women. Yet, these are some of the same folks who wonder why more women aren’t believed when they come forward with their allegations. Hmmm…well, I can’t figure it out. I’ll leave it to the “smart” Leftists.

Another tack being used by the Cuomo defenders is they want to have an investigation done into the allegations before they will call for him to resign. By the way, Justice Brett Kavanaugh is on Line 1. He wants to have a word with the Cuomo supporters.

Seriously, though, the defenders will try to act like they’ve always wanted investigations into sexual harassment allegations. I know you’re going to be surprised, but the Left is lying about this, too. When it comes to the Right, any and all allegations are believed, no matter how weak they are. Case in point: Christine Blasey Ford and the aforementioned Brett Kavanaugh. For Kavanaugh, the mere allegations were enough to disqualify him from the High Court, even though Blasey Ford was as credible as a Nigerian prince’s email. The more we dug into the allegations, the less believable they were.

That wasn’t a problem for the Left, though. They still invoke Blasey Ford’s name to show they support and believe women. When the roles are reversed, no benefit of a doubt is given. Whether it’s Paula Jones, Juanita Broadrick, or Tara Reade, the women have to be lying or being used by the “Right Wing Smear Machine” (Patent Pending) to bring down an innocent Leftist.

Even if the “innocent Leftist” has photos of him doing what he’s alleged to have done.

The thing to remember about the Left is they politicize sex because they politicize everything. When it comes to sexual harassment, they play jump rope with the tightrope they expect the rest of us to walk. And since the time of Anita Hill, they’ve learned how to play Double Dutch to the country’s detriment. When you are allowed to play fast and loose with the rules you personally set, you can justify anything.

That’s how cults get started. And Amway.

Right now, Cuomo is benefitting from the Leftist double standard, oddly enough in two ways. First, he’s skating on behavior that would get most of us drug through the mud by the people defending him. Second, it takes attention away from a more serious issue, that being his boneheaded approach to dealing with COVID-19 by putting patients with the elderly, one of the groups most susceptible to contracting it…and dying from it. Then again, the media have done a piss poor job of covering this aspect to Cuomo’s incompetence, so they’re focusing on the sexual scandal because sex sells. If the Left can get us to focus on the sex, they’re betting we’ll forget about the killing of Grandma and Grandpa. Then, once the sexual harassment story goes away, so does the nursing home scandal.

Unfortunately for them, that’s not how it works, kids.

Using sexual harassment as a means to cover up a major scandal is low, even for Leftists, because it shows how little they care about women’s issues that don’t rhyme with abortion or the gender pay gap. They can and will use women to achieve political ends, thus making the women affected by sexual harrassment and sexual assault acceptable losses as long as the Left gets what it wants.

In other words, the Left are the sexual predators they keep warning us exist.

The thing we have going for us is consistency. While the Left changes their rules at the drop of a hat, or some other article of clothing for that matter, we rely on facts and evidence gathered through research and logical thinking. No matter who is being accused, we want there to be an investigation where every allegation can be verified or rejected. What’s more, we don’t care whose ox gets gored in the process. As long as we continue to follow that mindset, the Left will ultimately lose.

In the meantime, Andrew Cuomo should be held accountable for what we’ve seen him do. Even though his sexual harassment is being used as a scapegoat, the fact he and his ideological partners are willing to throw women under the campaign bus to protect him should make the Left take a seat.

As in a Colosseum’s worth.

Leftist Lexicon Word of the Week

As we get closer to the first full school year under COVID-19, it’s interesting to see the differences in whether the schools are open, closed, or on a hybrid system. Many schools are open without issues, while others are closed up tighter than Rosie O’Donnell in a size 1 dress. After the Center for Disease Control reported public schools were safe to be open, there was one tiny little problem.

Teachers’ unions.

These unions have taken it upon themselves to build a case against opening schools, citing potential health issues (i.e. contracting COVID-19) as reasons schools should remain closed. And the Left, following the science, has sided with…the teachers’ unions.

Who are these people who can defy science without the self-described Party of Science get upset? Let’s find out!

teachers’ unions

What the Left thinks it means – a union devoted to ensuring top quality teachers are represented and are free to teach to the best of their abilities

What it really means –  a unaccountable union devoted to donating funds to the Left while holding no standards for the union members, no matter how much it hurts students

It’s scary to think about how much power teachers’ unions have as compared to their private sector counterparts. While a labor union can order strikes to get better wages and/or benefits, their impact is still relatively limited to a company or industry. A teachers’ union’s reach can span generations and impact millions of students and families to the point society itself is forced to change. The kindergarteners of today are going to grow up to be the Leftists of tomorrow, thanks to teachers’ unions.

Now, I’m not saying this as someone who doesn’t know the ins and outs of public schools. I am a public school graduate, and many of my family and friends have direct experience with the public school experience, and it’s getting to be where we’re all singing the same song. In my lifetime alone, I’ve watched public schools go from reciting the Pledge of Allegiance every morning to not reciting it to possibly not have any student know what it is in the first place. Sure, they’ll know all about inclusion and how to use condoms before they’re even past the “girls/boys are icky” stage, but not how to do simple math, write complete sentences, and the three branches of government. You know, stuff that’s kinda important to creating the next generation of citizens?

And the sad part is we let it go unnoticed and unchecked until it was too late to do anything about it.

That’s by design, so it’s not all our faults. Teachers’ unions love to work in plain sight while hiding their true intentions and devices. And, as you might expect, it all comes down to money. Thanks to the Department of Education (which is as useless as footnotes in a TMZ article), teachers’ unions are paid heavily to promote Leftist ideals under the guise of education. The only cost is these same unions funnel money back into Leftist coffers to support “pro-education” candidates. Once those candidates get into office, they can appropriate money to the teachers’ unions, who turn around and use those funds to…oh, I don’t know…build and maintain office buildings in Washington, DC. But I’m sure it’s for the kids…

If you believe that, I have swamp land in Arizona I’d love to sell you.

In fact, I’m hard-pressed to find anything teachers’ unions do for students, but they’ll bend over backwards to protect even the worst teachers in their ranks. Including defying the direction of the CDC. Let that roll around in your noggins for a bit. School districts are being kept shut in spite of the science we’re supposed to be following according to the Left because of a bunch of people who probably don’t teach science saying it’s too dangerous to teach because of a virus with a high-90% survival rate.

If that doesn’t tell you how much power teachers’ unions have right now, nothing will.

As much as I’d like to say there’s an easy answer to curtailing this power, I can’t. I mean, I can, but I wouldn’t be accurate in doing so. Instead, all I can suggest is to keep tabs on what is being taught in your local schools. Even if you no longer have children in school, the only way to combat indoctrination via teachers’ unions is to stay involved. Get on the school board. Keep current on what is being taught and try to combat the misinformation. Above all else, expose the bad actors whenever you can. After enough exposure, the teachers’ unions will lose their cover and will be forced to take action. After all, nothing hurts Leftists more than exposing their tactics.

And besides, how can we mock them if they aren’t exposed to be the total dipshits they are?

Leftist Lexicon Word of the Week

Remember back in the halcyon days of the Donald Trump Presidency when media types and fact-checkers would be finding every single lie the President said? Every statement was dissected, analyzed, and called out as false, even when the President either didn’t make the statement attributed to him or was actually accurate. But in the interest of real journalism, these brave souls endured the slings and arrows of outrageous White House Press Secretaries to bring you the truth.

At least that’s how they saw themselves. Nowadays, these “real journalists” are dissecting, analyzing, and regurgitating what President Joe Biden says while avoiding using the L-word: lie. Funny how these same brave souls are scared of an Administration whose most threatening gesture to date is to call reporters the wrong name (and, yes, this did happen).

Or maybe the Left’s definition of a lie has changed.

lie

What the Left thinks it means – a dishonest statement usually made by conservatives and Republicans

What it really means – one way the Left gets people to agree with them

Expecting honesty out of any politician is like expecting Bill Clinton to be faithful: it’s theoretically possible, but highly unlikely. Even so, Leftists have made lies their number one method of making progress. To them, the ends always justify the means, but only if their ends are met. Once the lie no longer works, it’s no longer useful to the Left and can be forgotten, even if it was told an hour ago. And if they get caught by an inconvenient truth, they will double down on the lying.

Say, “An Inconvenient Truth” would be a great title for a book, maybe a movie. Too bad I don’t know of anyone who would use it. Oh, well.

Anyway, the Left doesn’t just tell out and out falsehoods as their only means of achieving their goals. They also branch out into lies of omission, as we saw with the highly edited footage and quotes taken out of context used during Impeachment 2: Futility Boogaloo. Everything from Trump’s “very fine people on both sides” to his calls for a peaceful march on the Capitol minutes after rioters started a not-so-peaceful march on the Capitol was put on display by the House Managers as the heart of their case against Trump. Even after being debunked repeatedly.

Remember this when Leftists tell you Trump told over 95,000 lies during his Presidency.

Also, remember the tolerance of lies only goes one way. If a Republican lies (or is made to look like he or she lied), the Left give no quarter. Yet, if a Leftist tells a lie, it’s no big deal. In fact, any lies can be explained away using one of the Left’s favorite misused terms, nuance.

It was waaaaaaaaaay back in late December to early January that current President Joe Biden promised people $2000 checks on day one if the Senate went blue. Two special elections later, that number was reduced to $1400 because they said the previous $600 checks sent to taxpayers was a “down payment” on the $2000. But that’s not what he said. President Biden said “$2000 checks” not “checks totaling $2000.” Well, the Left tried to pretend the President didn’t lie because of, you guessed it, nuance. (Oh, and the fact the same people who think green jobs are profitable said the rest of us didn’t know basic math.) When the same fact checkers and media types did the same thing with President Trump, their interpretations of what he said (or didn’t say) were always negative. Joe Biden may be the first person in American history to get a generous benefit of the doubt while simultaneously getting Medicare benefits.

Take the recent comments made by Vice President Kamala Harris stating the Biden Administration was starting from scratch with the COVID-19 vaccine. Wellll…that was a lie. The Trump plan, which was consistent with a little thing the kids call federalism, put the vaccine distribution in the states’ hands. After Harris’ lie, the line changed from “starting from scratch” to “there was no federal program in place.” Which, by the way, was also a lie. Leftists can argue the effectiveness of the Trump plan, but the point remains they built their objections on a lie.

And remember, kids, these are the same folks who want the President to create a Reality Czar to battle misinformation. Call me skeptical, but I get the feeling such a Czar would be as politically honest as Snopes.

But there’s another reason the Left relies on lies: it’s a good way to create an alternate universe that they control. For as much as the Left called Trump a fascist, it’s hard to make that label stick when Leftists were continually allowed to call him a fascist. Yet, it’s taken as an article of faith, even though it’s a lie. By accepting the lie, the Left has the ability to make it become true if they believe hard enough. That’s how we came up with 258 genders (as of the typing of this sentence), people can be trans-racial, and Elizabeth Warren can both be Native American and whiter than Edgar Winter swimming in a vat of mayonnaise.

But that dishonesty comes with a price: it requires others to entertain the notion in the first place. Outside of the Leftist hive-mind, those numbers get pretty small. That’s the problem with self-delusion. Often, it comes down to the self to keep it going.

The key to overcoming the Left’s lies is to figure out what the truth is and stick with it no matter how many people (i.e. Leftists) tell you it’s not the truth. Whether it’s Media Matters, the Young Turks, or the Biden Administration, their credibility is doomed from the start because they have to lie, but we don’t. But there is one thing I think we should do with Leftists.

Mock them mercilessly!

Leftist Lexicon Word of the Week

In the aftermath of Impeachment 2.0 winding up the way Impeachment 1.0 went, Leftists are praising Republican Senators who voted to convict former President Donald Trump for allegedly inciting the January 6th protest/riot. And they’re using a phrase they’ve used before to blast Republicans: country before party.

Confused yet? Just wait until you think about how Leftists went from cop-haters to cop-lovers within a couple of weeks. But that’s a blog post for another time.

Until then, hopefully we can digest what the Left is saying now before they change their minds.

country before party

What the Left thinks it means – putting the good of the country ahead of any political good

What it really means – putting the actual good of the country ahead of the good for Leftists

The phrase “country before party” sounds like it came out of the PR department of the DNC or a clever turn of a phrase from the media. Wait, they’re one in the same. Nevermind.

Seriously, though, I can’t understate how rhetorically brilliant country before party is. Not only does it play to our emotions and patriotism, but it automatically creates a dichotomy that makes people pick a side based almost solely on our psychological need to belong. Nobody wants to put a political party ahead of the United States of America, right?

Not so much.

One of the issues I have with the phrase is how manipulative it is. Anyone who uses it forces you to make a Faustian deal: either agree with the side who claims to be for the country or be shunned as someone who sides with a political party. It’s akin to saying if you love dogs you must hate cats. That may go over well on the absurdly-specific Why Dogs Are Morally Superior to Cats web forum, but in practice it’s a false choice. You can love your country and support whatever political party you want because the two aren’t mutually exclusive. That’s the beauty of America: you don’t have to agree on everything to love the country that gave us muscle cars, 24/7 access to porn, and Taylor Swift. And to be fair, I’m willing to negotiate on that last one.

The other issue I have with the phrase is the Left doesn’t really mean it when they use it. When they praise someone like Utah Senator Mitt Romney for voting to convict Donald Trump, I always have to go back to 2012 when these same Leftists were shitting on Romney at every opportunity. Did Romney change? Nope. He’s still the same fair-weather Republican he was in 2008 and 2012. And I can safely say the Left hasn’t changed. What changed was the end goal. In 2012, Romney was painted as the second coming of Satan because he was running against President Barack Obama. In 2021, Romney is being painted as a patriot because of his Senate vote.

I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that’s not an accident.

The Left did the same thing to George W. Bush. After literally comparing him to Hitler, most of them started “respecting” him after he came out against Trump. Ditto John McCain and the members of The Lincoln Project. Although after recent events, the Left may want to distance themselves from The Lincoln Project. Then again, they keep Bill Clinton on speed-dial when they need a little cash coming into the DNC’s coffers.

In any case, the Left will always put party/ideology before the country every time and they don’t even try to hide it anymore. Remember the long-promised COVID-19 financial relief package that we were supposed to get last year? Although we got $600 (which would buy us a limited amount of groceries, a few tanks of gas, or three trips to Starbucks), President Trump wanted $2000 more, which would have given much more, albeit temporary, relief. After Democrats took control of the House of Representatives in 2019, the Left had control of the federal purse strings. When COVID-19 hit and we needed financial help, the Left used this power of the purse to…prevent us from getting any more relief. The reason?

Orange Man Bad.

The Left hated Trump so much, they were (and still are) willing to make working people suffer for political victory. The sad thing is it worked. Now under President Joe Biden, we’re not getting the $2000 Trump was insisting upon. Instead, we’re getting $1400 because we got the $600 mentioned earlier, thus equaling $2000. And if you say anything like “Didn’t you promise us $2000 on day one if the Senate flipped to Democrat control” you get mocked, gaslighted, and talked down to as though you don’t know basic math.

Yeah, I want these assholes preaching to me about country before party.

The fact Leftists think they’re the standard bearers for country before party should be taken with a grain of salt…the size of Mount Everest. But you know who is the standard bearer?

We are.

I don’t care if you voted for Trump, Biden, Vermin Supreme, Godzilla, or the SMOD, as long as you want to make the country better. We will disagree on how to get there, but the final destination should be the same and we should be willing to figure out how everyone can get there. And the Left can’t have that because it doesn’t create chaos and discontent that can be exploited for their political gains. So, the next time you see a Leftist mention putting the country before a party, you can ask them what they’re doing to make that a reality in their own lives. When they can’t answer without bringing up an ideological stance, invite them to kindly shove their opinions straight up their asses.

Oh, and ask them when we’re getting the $2000 Biden promised because last time I checked $1400 isn’t $2000.

Masks are Political

ABC ran a story on the CDC about double masking. And reading it you will discover a few interesting bits. These get glossed over by the media but they are actually telling the truth here too.

The article is located at:
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/masks-cdc-study-finds/story?id=75789183

The 1st and obvious issue is that the URL has the story in the Politics section and not in the Health section of ABC’s website. Why? Because mask wearing is political and has nothing to do with health.

The 6th paragraph in the article clearly states that researchers at the CDC used mannequin-like forms to text exposure. Using test dummies is fine for testing cars or ballistics. But it tells you nothing about a respiratory system of a human being.

Further down in the article. The CDC is reported as saying that wearing tight-fitting N95 masks is not recommended because they are hard to breath in. And wearing N95 masks isn’t necessary in public places.

Wearing of masks is 100% political. There is no science behind this mask wearing. Using mannequins is not scientific at all when it comes to the study of a virus and how it is transmitted and effects the body.

I’m not going to say don’t wear one. If it makes you feel better by all means wear it. In your car by yourself too. Whatever floats your boat. But when such an article is posted in the political section of a major news organization. It speaks volumes.

The United States of Orwell

We’re less than a month into the Biden Administration and we’re already seeing changes in the way things are getting done. Unfortunately, those changes aren’t good ones.

In the past week alone, the following events occurred:

– Leftists and non-Leftists called out the Biden Administration for promising $2000 COVID-19 relief checks, only to watch the President and the DNC lower that amount to $1400, citing the $600 previously approved was a “down payment.”

– White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki scoffed at the use of anonymous sources for news leads potentially critical of the Biden Administration.

– Biden supporters have expressed a desire/need to limit conservative voices in mainstream media, social media, and in general, suggesting they should be “named and shamed” so people don’t ever do business with them or take them seriously.

– Members of the media are arguing any seemingly dishonest statements from President Joe Biden lack nuance or, more frequently, advise the dishonesty was far worse under President Donald Trump.

New York Times tech columnist Kevin Roose wrote the Biden Administration needs to appoint a “reality czar” to address what he called a “reality crisis.”

– Leftists have eagerly supported “reeducation camps” for Trump supporters as a means to “deprogram” them.

– The Biden Administration requires people to wear masks on federal property as a means to stop the spread of COVID-19 while he has been photographed without one, leading Leftists to try to explain it away.

– Joe Biden announced a program to roll out COVID-19 vaccinations that matched what the Trump Administration was already doing at the same rate.

– Leftists are calling the incoming Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg the first openly gay person to serve in a Cabinet, thereby erasing Richard Grennell’s existence as the first openly gay person to serve in a Cabinet.

We’re not in the Upside Down, kids. This is what is actually happening.

Right now, we’re being told to believe what the government and its agents are telling us, even if it doesn’t live in the same neighborhood as reality. If you though the “gender is fluid” debate was insane, we’re entering a whole new suburb of Crazy Town.

And this is by design. The Left’s playbook has always relied on affecting change through manipulation of language. If they can get people to think a certain way through framing a topic in a certain way, Leftists can reshape perception, which reshapes the audience’s reality even if it creates self-delusion. Although there are many real life examples of this happening, there’s a literary one that seems to fit what the Left is trying, and in some cases succeeding, to do: 1984.

And before you Leftists call me out on it, I have read the book and understand it quite clearly. Unlike you, I also understand it’s not an instruction manual.

Whether it’s Big Brother (the fictional entity, not the TV show) or Big Biden, the principle of controlling the narrative is vital to the outcome. The more they can get you to believe 2 + 2 = 5, the better able they are able to convince you of other absurdities, like there are more than 2 genders, white people can believe they’re black, and it’s okay to enact fascism under the guise of preventing it.

George Orwell would be proud. Or frightened. Or confused.

But you needn’t be any of those because non-Leftists have a secret weapon that undercuts the Left’s most Orwellian of policies: free will. When you really think about it, the Left requires subservience to be successful, but only if you choose to be subservient. We can’t all be as outwardly rebellious as Number 6 from “The Prisoner,” but we can camouflage what we believe through the kind of intellectual subterfuge the Left employs. Outwardly comply, but inwardly resist. At some point, the Left will over-reach and their house of cards falls down.

And that’s the other secret weapon we have: the Left is just that stupid.

No matter what, the Left always manages to find a way to ensure defeat after securing victory, usually within a short time. Their main flaw is and always has been they don’t typically think strategically in advance of the next election. They think in terms of what wins now versus what will win years from now. The whole $1400 check debacle is proof of that. They keep doubling and tripling down on the “it’s basic math” argument when they need to be thinking of how to deliver what was promised without trying to weasel out of it. That doesn’t help anyone, let alone the people who actually need the money. Plus, once more people realize why they didn’t get $2000 in the first place and what party caused it (Spoiler Alert: It’s the Democrats), it’s not going to end well.

So keep your chins up, dear readers. No matter how many times the Left tells you 2+2=5, just remember these same rotten eggheads came up with Common Core.

Leftist Lexicon Word of the Week

This week has been a great one for our favorite Socialist Socialite, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez. After accusing Senator Ted Cruz of attempted murder in a tweet where the two agreed on the recent Robinhood controversy, she came out this week and told her story about what happened on January 6th.

To put it mildly, I’ve seen less melodrama in a telenovela than in her story. And, as expected, Leftists ran with it, even if the facts didn’t exactly match up with her version of events. After people attempted to correct the record, fact-checking website Snopes got involved and came out looking like one of AOC’s social media team by ruling the fact checks that undermined her story “misleading.”

I know we’ve covered fact checking before on the Lexicon, but this week I want to delve deeper into Snopes to try to figure out how they operate.

Snopes

What the Left thinks it means – a valuable fact-checking website that does its homework to expose lies

What it really means – a website that went from debunking urban legends to creating political ones

Snopes built its reputation for telling the truth by focusing on those stories we took as gospel, but may or may not have the ring of truth. You know, like the government actually spending within its means? For a while, this was good enough for the owners/creators of the site, but eventually it branched out into politics. Not surprising, given the creators happened to be prominent Democrat donors. Now, that wouldn’t matter to me if they stuck with urban legends, but once you cross the line into politics, those little details matter because they can taint the results of your fact checking.

Let’s just say Snopes has no concerns with it because they don’t care about whether their fact checks resemble factual information.

Take the AOC story, for example. Regardless of how you feel about the events of January 6th, it’s not far-fetched to say she could have felt she was in danger. Yet, the way she initially described it made it sound like she was at the Capitol when everything went sideways. That wasn’t the case, though. She was in a different building within a short walk of the Capitol and was evacuated before the protestors breached the building itself. Additionally, she said her fear was compound by a man yelling “Where is she?” That man happened to be a member of the Capitol Police trying to keep her safe and get her away from the potential danger.

Nowhere in that series of events was AOC in any actual danger, though. She can feel she was in fear for her life (which makes me wonder just how New York she really is), but the facts don’t back it up. And as Ben Shapiro has pointed out on a few occasions, facts don’t care about your feelings.

When presented with tweets explaining the logical inconsistencies, Snopes found the fact checks on AOC misleading because…she never said she was at the Capitol when things happened, which is true, but contradicted by her own story as she told it. It’s a question of literal versus figurative speech, which can also be subject to political biases. Case in point: President Donald Trump’s “very fine people on both sides” comment after Charlottesville. Even though the President clearly and unequivocally denounced the racists, the Left ran with the narrative he thought the racists were “very fine people.” The President literally explained himself, but it wasn’t convenient, so the Left went with what they said he meant to say. (Cue the dog whistles the Left keeps hearing, but few others outside of their circles can…which is an odd thing to consider if you really think about it.)

And how did Snopes rate Trump’s statement? A “mixture” because they felt he didn’t condemn white supremacists. Funny how a clear articulation gets treated as a mixture of truth and lies, but a clear implication AOC was at the Capitol Building gets treated differently. 

That’s why fact checking, especially from Snopes, needs to be scrutinized and mocked mercilessly. I can count on the one hand of the world’s worst shop teacher the number of times Snopes has given Republicans the benefit of the doubt, but they will bend over like Cirque du Soleil when it’s a Democrat. No logic is too pretzel-like for Snopes if the ideology is right.

Even when the Democrat and Republican says the same thing using the same terminology. And, yes, this actually happened.

I have a rule of thumb when it comes to checking facts: if you have to equivocate to make something true, it ain’t true. The fact the preeminent fact checker can’t call balls and strikes should tell you everything you need to know about Snopes and its standards. Yet, Snopes keeps finding a way to limbo under their already low standards, as they have here.

Take their overwhelming focus on Republicans. The Left loves to point at the fact Snopes calls out more Republican lies than Democrat lies as proof the Left is more truthful. Now, consider the Snopes fact checking model. Naturally they’re going to find Republicans lie more because the site actively targets Republicans and giving half-butted explanations as to why while simultaneously giving Democrats a pass on even their most egregious lies. Under those parameters, it’s more likely that David Duke will win an NAACP Image Award than a Republican will get a fair shake, or an NAACP Image Award for that matter.

Even though Snopes has been in the fact checking game for a while, it’s clear they haven’t learned facts have no party affiliation. If a Democrat or a Republican tells a lie, it’s a lie. If somebody from “flyover country” gets it, why can’t Snopes?

Leftist Lexicon Word of the Week

With a new President comes new hopes. The hope that the President will make wise decisions in the face of amazing pressure. The hope the President does what’s best for the American people. And, in this case, the hope the President doesn’t nod off during a state dinner.

But the hopes don’t end with the President. Leftists are now hoping to do away with a tool the Senate has used for centuries, the filibuster. And they’re doing it in the only way they know how: using a hashtag, #EndtheFilibuster. Although Leftists have used the filibuster in the past (see Wendy Davis), they now think it’s outlived its usefulness.

As with most things, the Left hasn’t thought this out, as we’ll soon see.

#EndtheFilibuster

What the Left thinks it means – a movement to get rid of an antiquated process that prevents progress

What it really means – a movement to remove the voice of the minority in the Senate

Now, for a quick history/civics lesson before we get into the meat of the issue. Senate rules allow for members to delay or stop legislation from passing by getting up and speaking until the controversy is resolved. Usually, this is done by members of the minority party in the Senate to block legislation, but it can be used to make a statement. Namely, some politicians love the sound of their own voices. This bit of political theater is known as a filibuster, and it’s a mixed bag as far as effectiveness. These days, the threat of a filibuster is enough to get politicians to back down.

Now that Democrats control the Senate, they want to take that option away from Republicans due to allegations of the GOP abusing it. Whether they actually did is a matter of opinion, but it’s interesting to note the timing of this desire to do away with the filibuster. I mean, this isn’t something the Left has made a focal point last year when they were campaigning to taking back the Senate. As soon as they got the votes and won the two open seats they needed, the filibuster became Leftist Enemy Number 1. (Excluding Donald Trump, of course.)

Maybe it’s me, but I seem to remember the Left wanting to silence conservative voices for, oh, the past decade or so, and it makes me wonder if the removal of the filibuster is in line with that philosophy. But I’m sure no one could be that petty, right?

Sorry. I forgot we were dealing with Leftists here. They hold grudges like Atlas holds up the globe.

Regardless, this current move to eliminate the filibuster is a bad idea that assumes far too much and leaves it open for others to use it against the Left down the line. Say what you will about Mitch McConnell, but he has a working understanding of Senate rules and traditions that is unmatched by his Democrat/Leftist detractors. That makes it easier for him to get what he wants by letting his opponents do all the work for him. Just ask Harry Reid about how the “nuclear option” on judicial nominees worked out for him. (Spoiler Alert: it’s how Donald Trump got his Supreme Court nominees through so quickly.)

This same kind of short-sighted strategy is in play here. The Left loves to think once they get into power they won’t ever be unseated. Politics doesn’t work that way. For every swing in one direction there will be a swing in the other direction eventually. Assuming permanence without evidence and without considering the long-term effects if things go south is like buying a Ferrari assuming you’re going to hit a slot jackpot at Uncle Cheater’s Casino and Pawn Shop. It works great if your plans come to fruition, but it’s a nightmare if it doesn’t. And when it comes to politics, the Left has been playing a lot of slots while avoiding the calls from the Ferrari dealership about when they can expect payment.

On the other side of the coin, the Left can’t call for unity while silencing the Right. I mean, they’ll try, but they will have a hard time convincing the public they’re serious about it. Although most people don’t know about Parler or Gab, they know about fairness. If one party consistently tries to curtail the other’s ability to do business, voters and potential voters may start feeling sympathy towards the injured party, which can swing the pendulum in the opposite direction. With the next election cycle being the midterm elections in 2022 and with the historical tendency for voters to create a divided government, this spells trouble for the Left.

So, naturally, they want to keep pulling the slot machine lever and taking their chances.

Although ending the filibuster is a bad idea, I do think the practice needs to be modified by requiring a personal stake in the outcome. If you threaten a filibuster on a bill, get your comfy shoes on because you will be speaking upright for quite some time. If you threaten a filibuster and don’t follow through, you should be punished financially for it and deserve to be mocked mercilessly. Either way, the parties will either have to learn to work together to come up with bipartisan legislation or they get mocked and have to pay out of pocket for it. That’s a win-win in my book!

Although #EndtheFilibuster has all the sexiness of Ernest Borgnine in a burlap teddy, it’s gaining traction with Leftists who want to exercise absolute power in the Senate because…reasons. Yet, it’s such a monumentally bad idea that shows the Left hasn’t learned their lesson from the previous times in recent history they’ve tried to pull the same kind of power trip only to have it blow up in their faces within an election cycle or two.

At least they’re consistent with their insanity.

Why Trump’s Second Impeachment Is Already a Failure

Now that Democrats control both the House and the Senate, you didn’t need to be Nostradamus to see a second impeachment against President Donald Trump would be a foregone conclusion. Leftists and Democrats are overjoyed at the possibility of sticking it to Trump one more time as he leaves the White House because…unity? Anyway, right now the only matter on the table will be how severe the punishment against Trump will be.

No matter what the Left decides is sufficient punishment, the impeachment is already a failure. Oh, sure, they’ll get the votes to convict and to punish, but in their rush to impeach, the Left has overlooked one important detail that renders their efforts as irrelevant as the footnotes in a Vox article.

Donald Trump has zero fucks to give.

Remember, impeachment is a political action, not a legal one. That means the extent of the impact of any impeachment is limited to the political realm. Even if the punishment includes Trump never holding public office again, he’s already served in public office once. Can’t draw a federal pension? Trump might have the money to do without it. No Secret Service protection for the rest of his life? I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say he already has hired security on the payroll. No matter what else the Left wants to tack onto the impeachment in the way of punishment, Trump has it or can have it covered. He may still have issues on the legal side of the equation, but there are no political consequences that will hurt Trump now or ever.

This may open a can of worms, but it begs the question of why the Left is so hot to impeach Trump again even though the punishment won’t affect him. There are a number of possible reasons, but the one I keep coming back to is revenge for winning the Presidency in the first place. I would hope the Left wouldn’t hold a grudge, but considering they still crap on Ronald Reagan, I’m guessing they haven’t gotten past the first stage of grief yet.

What they have done, however, is open a door that can and will swing back to hit them on the backside. As of this writing, Donald Trump is no longer President, which means the Senate element of the impeachment process will be against someone who is now a private citizen. A loud and somewhat boorish private citizen, but a private citizen nonetheless. It’s almost like convicting someone posthumously, except the convict is able to speak and hasn’t voted 43 times in Chicago yet.

Now, let’s play this out a bit. Let’s say Republicans or Trump-allied Republicans win back the House and Senate in 2022. Under the current Leftist strategy, that means Barack Obama can be impeached and punished for any number of crimes, actual or political, as can Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, and any number of previous Presidents. Under the current Congressional leadership, impeachments against George W. Bush, George H. W. Bush, and even Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford could be on the table. We could see Impeach-A-Palooza for the next few years, which will significantly impact the ability of Congress to do its actual job.

Wait. Did I just make an argument in favor of politically posthumous impeachments?

While I try to figure that out, let me leave you with the bottom line here. Leftists and Democrats are so hell-bent on impeaching Donald Trump a second time (even though the first impeachment was legally flimsier than any case argued by Lionel Hutz) while ignoring the boomerang effect that will happen under different political circumstances because that’s what politics is anymore: using any advantage to the party’s benefit. And with some of the dirty players in DC, the taste of short term victory is sweet, but turns sour when someone else plays the long game.

So, I would invest heavily in popcorn shares. I get the feeling there is going to be a big demand for it when the fit hits the shan.

The State of the Onion Address, 2020 Edition

As the glow from the flaming dumpster fire that was 2020 appears in our rearview mirror, we can finally take a look back with hope, namely the hope that 2020 doesn’t come back for an encore. Unfortunately for us, the media’s malpractice will be coming back like the food and drink after a really intense bender.

The state of journalism last year was the gasoline thrown on top of the aforementioned dumpster fire. Big stories, like a little bug known as COVID-19, got covered intensely by people whose only experience with medicine is drinking a Dr. Pepper, while other stories, like Jeffrey Epstein’s “suicide” or Hunter Biden’s business details, were treated with a dismissive hand wave in spite of there being more red flags than a Chinese military parade. That is, of course, when they weren’t busy being the sycophantic propaganda arm of the Left.

But don’t you dare call the media out for acting like the lapdogs they were! They are real reporters working on real news, like…oh, I don’t know…continuing to follow the Russiagate narrative after being embarrassed by the lack of actual facts involved in it. That was certainly more important than reporting the actual news or following up on stories that might make the Left look bad. You know, like dragging a kid through the mud for shooting Leftist thugs who were attacking him first. The interwebs often did the work the “real news” people were reluctant to do, but the “real news” folks could be counted on to provide only half the story to advance their ideological ends.

Speaking of which, how’d that work out for you media types with Nick Sandmann?

The only other constant in modern media outside of the fact they’re all terrible is that they don’t learn from their mistakes. Oddly enough, that perpetuates the terribleness, which makes it all the more humorous to me. A lot of that comes down to ego. High profile journalists (which should never be a thing, in my opinion) are often notorious for having skin thinner than the plot of a Michael Bay movie. When they get caught screwing up, being general asshats, or looking down their noses at the rest of us, there’s a tiny bit of satisfaction that comes from watching them fail time and time again. It’s schadenfreudelicious!

Over the past year, the media decided to be fact checkers for anything and everything President Donald Trump said. And they failed. A lot. As of this writing, they still haven’t admitted the President was right when he said there would be a COVID-19 vaccine by the end of 2020. In fact, the media and their handpicked experts said it would be impossible. It makes you wonder why anyone pays attention to these self-professed defenders of truth when they can’t even find it.

This also applies to the self-professed fact checkers the media love to use to “debunk” the President and his supporters. In a move that can only be called peak 2020, the media did a handful of fact checks on…the Babylon Bee, a satirical website. And this is after popular fact checking website Snopes fact checked the Bee just the year before and were deservedly mocked for it.

Remember what I said earlier about the media not learning from their mistakes?

The funny thing (at least to me) in all of this is the people who profess to check and know the facts so we don’t have to are the ones who struggle the most with the facts and correcting the record when they get their facts wrong. This is why I take the media’s portrayal of themselves with a great lake of salt. At this point, you’re better getting your news from your local Super Shopper that has been left in a festering pile of garbage.

And speaking of festering piles of garbage, let’s talk about Twitter. Granted Twitter is to news what Jerry Springer is to quality TV programming, but more and more people (including journalists) are using it to report on events as they happen in as close to real time as we can get. The only problems with this type of on-the-spot reporting are 1) the information may not always be accurate, 2) information can be mixed with opinion easily, and 3) it’s fucking Twitter. And if you think journalists are slow to admit they were wrong, Twitter users rarely, if ever, correct their mistakes. They just prefer to ignore them or double down while insulting anyone who disagrees with them. Which, as we know, is the only way to win debates.

In closing, it will be fun to watch the media who spent so much time fact checking fall asleep on the job as Joe Biden starts his administration. If 2020 is any indication, 2021 in the media is going to be lit.

Just like a dumpster fire!