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Politifact Needs to be Fact-Checked

PolitiFact staff at the 2012 RNC in Tampa (submitted photo).

At the top of Politifact’s website lies the banner “Stand up for the Facts”. Hogwash! It is just another preening part of the progressive (meaning left-wing) blob.

Check this out: Politifact conjures a distinction without a distinction in an attempt to distance Biden and Harris from their 2020 campaign rhetoric. In 2020 Biden and Harris were in full campaign mode throwing aspersions on Trump and his administration’s efforts to develop a vaccine. The apparatchiks at Politifact tried to run interference for the Dem politicos by claiming that they weren’t vaccine deniers in the run up to the vote. According to the young techno-demigods at Politifact, Biden/Harris were merely smearing Trump, not the vaccine. Hogwash!

Harris trumpeted, with Biden rapping in similar words, “If Donald Trump tells us to take it, I’m not taking it.” With invective, she went after the medical scientists in Operation Warp Speed (OWS) by dismissing them as weak-kneed shills for Trump, saying they “will be muzzled, they will be suppressed, they will be sidelined, because he’s looking at an election coming up in less than 60 days. . . .”

Kamala Harris in September of 2020 declaring that she doesn’t trust Trump’s vaccine.

The lead OWS scientist was Moncef Slaoui and he countered her bombast by saying “the approach is 100 percent based on facts and data and nothing else.”

And to say, as Politifact does, that Biden/Harris weren’t disparaging the vaccine? How do you avoid smearing the vaccine when you go after the credibility of the people who produced it? Why else would Harris declare “I’m not taking it”?

The buffoonery of Politifact is amazing beyond belief. Now, our new potentates are trying to stampede the reluctant into taking the jabs by imposing many of the old lockdown measures. The bunglers running the show in DC want to take away our lives in order to achieve perfect compliance with a vaccine that 8 months before they were ridiculing.

And to think that this duo got 81 million votes. Now I see why. The usual suspects, like Politifact, were in the tank for them. You can read Politifact’s twaddle here.

RogerG

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California’s Young Pioneers

Anti-racism – really critical race theory – indoctrination in an American classroom.

Young Pioneers: officially the Vladimir Lenin All-Union Pioneer Organization and abbreviated as the Young Pioneers; the main Soviet Communist Party youth organization for young activists aged 9-15 from 1922 to 1991.

Young Pioneers in Moscow parade.
Young pioneers greeting Joseph Stalin, 1935. (Photo by Ivan Shagin)

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I’m afraid that too many adults use the schools as daycare. They go to work – or whatever – assuming that these mostly public employees, teachers and staff, will magically turn their offspring into well-balanced citizens. Little do they know that they are handing their kids to schools that increasingly resembles those in Castro’s Cuba or the Soviet Union. The curricula and pedagogy is geared to indoctrination for the Revolution. Their aim is to replicate something like the Young Pioneers of the Vladimir Lenin All-Union Pioneer Organization.

Bernie and his bros continually extol the virtues of Castro by citing the regime’s campaign for schools and universal literacy. But literacy for what? Literacy is just another means of mind control in the absence of a First Amendment. The politburo wants you to read, read only their stuff since nothing else is permitted. Would it be better in this context to be illiterate and thus freer from state mind control?

California is hurtling toward velvet-glove Castroism. As a 30-year teaching veteran of California public schools, I know of the many ukases for politicizing the curriculum. The “Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum” approved by the state’s education commissars is the newest one and full of interesting tidbits to further the permanent revolution. It’s the latest in a long line of faddish political radicalisms being injected into your child’s head.

For instance, the early Christian pilgrims are accused of “theocide”, the extermination of “indigenous epistemic and cultural futurity” (what impenetrable jargon). With the model curriculum comes model lesson plans. One calls for teacher-led chants to the Aztec god Tezkatlipoka, worshipped in the old days with human sacrifice and cannibalism. So, “theocide” consists of Christ’s Golden Rule – do unto others as you would have done to yourself – replacing the propitiation of nature spirits with human butchery. Hopefully, in the classroom, the rescue of the oppressed from cultural enslavement will be limited to chants.

Contemporaneous depiction of Aztec human sacrifice.

The one caveat is that this cranky lunacy was in the “proposed” draft. Whether it remained in the final edict is something that can’t be determined at this time, but the fact that it was included in the beginning says volumes about the goofs running your schools.

It makes one seriously consider pricing out a moving truck. For Cubans escaping Castro’s schools, the crossing of the Florida Straight is 90 miles by raft in shark-infested waters. It’s a bit longer, and safer, for most Californians to seek refuge beyond the reach of the commissars, but think of it as an investment in the sanity of your children.

RogerG

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The Private Eye in “The Creepy Line”

“Before you become too entranced with gorgeous gadgets and mesmerizing video displays, let me remind you that information is not knowledge, knowledge is not wisdom, and wisdom is not foresight. Each grows out of the other, and we need them all.” — Sir Arthur C. Clarke and in the prologue of the documentary film, “The Creepy Line”

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I’m of a mixed mind on whether to post this. It’s about the whole gaggle of social media biggies and Google. They might flag it for “misinformation” and I’ll end up like Dennis Praeger or Jordan Peterson taking a timeout in the mass emptiness of internet cancellation.

Today’s film recommendation: “The Creepy Line” on Amazon Prime. The trailer is below. The title refers to the red line, once coined by Eric Schmidt of Google, that demarcates truly neutral internet platforms – like Facebook, Twitter, and Google profess to be – and censorship and manipulation of the mind. Have they crossed it? What’s happened post-2016 makes me wonder . . . a lot.

The film answers the question with a resounding “Yes”. The film proclaims that the internet giants engage in monstrous abuse of their legal immunity in Section 230c of the Communications Decency Act. Are they really “neutral” platforms or do they systematically engage in censorship and mind control through their algorithms, the biases of their staffs, and so-called policies? The film is a deep dive into Google and Facebook’s surveillance of our internet use for profit and, now, the direction of our preferences.

Their snooping, or surveillance, advances them far beyond the old Pinkerton Detective Agency, whose logo was the all-seeing eye, putting the “private” in private eye.

An even more troubling occurrence is the emerging alliance between their potential regulators, the federal government with its huge administrative state, and these tech monoliths. Press Secretary Jen Psaki let the cat out of the bag in a July 16 presser. She proclaimed, “… we work to engage with them to better understand the enforcement of social media platform policies [against “misinformation” about the vaccines] . . . . and of course promoting quality information algorithms”. Combine these comments with Mark Zuckerberg’s 2018 admission before Congress that Silicon Valley is an “extremely left-leaning place”. A deep bias at the service of the federal Leviathan should send shivers down the spine of any thoughtful person.

Many of us are so wedded to our devices that we blindly accept what Google, Facebook, and Twitter are flashing before our eyes. When their algorithms and interventions work both to reinforce a left-wing bias and obedience to the state, we have crossed over the red line and past the borders into Orwell’s Oceania.

RogerG

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A Power Fetish

Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer addresses the media, May 20, 2020. (Rebecca Cook/Reuters)

The Progressives’ ideological DNA orients them to a lust for power. No better example can be found than in Michigan’s Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. She’s currently dithering between clamping down again or opening up under a regime of continuing restrictions such as masking, restaurant dining caps (50), and pleas to get vaccinated. Obviously, opening up means something different to a progressive than a normal person. They just can’t let people be free even when they loosen the reins. If they can get way with it, their reins will still be firmly attached to the popular bridle.

Read about Whitmer in a piece by Ingrid Jacques, deputy editorial page editor at the Detroit News.

Unbeknownst to our mandarins, the vaccine changed the entire virus paradigm. If you took the jabs, you’re risks for getting or spreading the bug are greatly diminished. When sick, the symptoms are manageable. You’re not a super-spreader and not likely to be an occupant of an ICU. You’re free . . . or should be.

If you choose to avoid the shots, it’s totally on you. You attend the public square at your own risk . . . or maybe the threat is still miniscule because of good health, being young, or you possess the antibodies due to prior infection or the fact that you’re just plain biologically gifted. What’s the point to the masking and closures if the means to escape its clutches is abundantly available and the only ones left in the danger zone are those willingly choosing to remain exposed?

If you’re a hypochondriac or borderline obsessive/compulsive, quarantine yourself. Walmart has home delivery and curbside pickup. Amazon and the rest of the online retailers would be happy to take your money without disrupting the tranquility of the couch.

Oh, I can hear the refrain from our progressive brethren that the refuseniks are costing us in higher insurance premiums, federal outlays, and hospital beds. Come on, that’s the “social cost” gambit run amok. It’s a dodge because it has no limiting principle and is therefore a blank check for state control of all aspects of our lives. Robust “social cost” and liberty are the matter and antimatter of a constitutional order.

Risk is a part of life. Get used to it. And some periods have greater risk than others. The Whitmers of our political landscape have no leg to stand on. It comes down to a lust for power by authoritarian busybodies riding under the banner of progressivism.

Jefferson put it quite succinctly: “The mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God.”

RogerG

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Railroaded by 2 Percent

I’ve previously mentioned my astonishment at the sudden embrace of extremist and exotic ideologies by powerful institutions in the Western world. The spittle-laced fulminations of college social justice warriors and the terrorist-clad thumpings of Antifa groupies are now mainstreamed. What’s happened?

What makes the commandant of the Marine Corps, Gen. Mark Milley, sound like AOC? Or corporate heads like Kimberly Boyd, Hasbro’s senior vice president of global brands, to say something really stupid to defend the removal of “Mr.” from “Mr. Potato Head”? She said,

“Culture has evolved. Kids want to be able to represent
their own experiences. The way the brand currently exists—
with the ‘Mr.’ and ‘Mrs.’—is limiting when it comes to both
gender identity and family structure.”

Everyone of any prominence is jumping on the bandwagon. Lunacy has become the new normal. It’s now everywhere. Your kids are getting it in kindergarten under the pretentious moniker “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” (DEI). Personally, I think that “Inclusion” should be moved to the middle to make for a more accurate acronym – DIE.

Soon, we’ll all be lunatics.

Once again, how did we get here? My answer: 2% runs the world. They don’t have to be talented; they just have to be opinionated. The clique is cloistered in high-rent zip codes and on Twitter and Instagram.

This came to mind when researching the relative size of the crowd on Twitter. According to the NY Post, 22% of Americans use the digital grapevine. Of that number, 10% account for 80% of the digital burps (tweets). That means that the rantings of 2% of the American population carry the potential for the jihad. (See the story here)

History confirms the dynamic. Do you think for one moment that the Russian Bolsheviks of 1917 were a popular movement? I don’t even think that they busted the threshold of 2% in popularity or even name recognition. Yet, a cadre of useful idiots and tightly organized zealots can count for more than the silent majority. It’s amazing that revolutions can be a march to ruin on so little.

RogerG

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A Dog Chasing Its Tail

Biden’s tail-chasing health team. Clockwise left to right: Dr. Rochelle Walensky, Natalie Quillian, Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith, Dr. Vivek Murthy, Dr. Anthony Fauci, Jeff Zients and Xavier Becerra

Have you noticed that some government heavies, mostly in the donkey party, are inching closer to resuming last year’s social and economic straitjacket? They can’t let it go. The virus variants and June-to-July spikes are said to be driving the fervor. But have you wondered that this is beginning to resemble a dog chasing its tail? The evolutionary twists and turns of microscopic bugs have always been with us. The CDC can’t repeal evolution. As soon as we get a vaccine, out pops a resistant strain and it’s off to the races to lockdowns and another “moral equivalent of war” to develop another vaccine. It’s turning into a never-ending cycle, or the dog not quite being able to seize its tail.

We did the lockdowns and the strangulation of social and economic life with the horrendous masking, school closures, home shut-ins, and the social distancing that treats everyone as a plague carrier. What’s all this doing to our psyches? Are we going at this all wrong? Yes, develop vaccines, but work even more fervently to uncover therapeutics. We already have a great head start.

In fact, more money and effort should go into treatments than vaccines. After the equivalent of a moon-shot dash to vaccinate for the current bug, we’re off to another spike facing an up-armored relative. If that is our focus, nothing changes. It would make more sense to make the bug less lethal through successful treatments. For vulnerable groups – and we know who they are – quarantining may be advisable till the danger passes. We should never again smother everyone because certain individuals have heightened sensitivities. We are learning what happens when you try to stop human beings from being human.

Our motto should be “Never again!” Target protections for the vulnerable, develop and maintain an inventory of the requisite therapeutics, work on vaccines, and, for God’s sake, allow us to be human again.

On second thought, keep this in mind: our government doesn’t “allow” us to be human. That’s the shtick of the Castro’s in Havana. They’re all into “allow” and “disallow”. All government actions in our country must be taken within the contours of our God-given rights. Think about that.

What do you say?

RogerG

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A Big Ray of Hope

Coach Monty Williams of the Phoenix Suns with guard Devin Booker during a game on May 23, 2021. (Mark J. Rebilas / USA TODAY Sports)

In the midst of the frenzied jihad against the mythical monster of white racism with its unrestrained attacks and accusatory belittlements, there are those who’ve maintained an even keel. One such person is Monty Williams, head coach of the Phoenix Suns. His decency is a beacon in these troubled times.

In this year’s NBA finals, the Suns lost to the Milwaukee Bucks but Williams strove over to the Bucks’ locker room minutes after the final buzzer and court celebrations to say, “I just wanted to come and congratulate you guys, as a man, as a coach. You guys deserved it, and I am thankful for the experience.”

To get an even fuller measure of the man, in 2016 he performed the eulogy for his wife who was killed in a car crash by a man driving the other car probably high on meth. Widowed with 5 children, in tear-choked words, he said,

“Everybody is praying for me and my family, and that is right, but let us not forget that there were two people in this situation, and that family needs prayer as well. And we have no ill will toward that family. In my house, we have a sign that says, ‘As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.’ We cannot serve the Lord if we don’t have a heart of forgiveness.

“That family didn’t wake up wanting to hurt my wife. Life is hard. Life is very hard. And that was tough. But we hold no ill will towards the Donaldson family. And we, as a group, united, should be praying for that family, because they grieve as well.”

What an inspiration. God bless him. We are in desperate need of more people like him.

RogerG

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Losing America

Last night, I was informed that the NFL will perform “Lift Every Voice and Sing”, the so-called black national anthem, before every game next year. The newest federal holiday is Juneteenth (June 19), officially dubbed the “Juneteenth National Independence Day” – close enough in the calendar to compete with July 4. With all the kneeling and disrespect to the flag and national anthem, statue toppling, and renaming of schools to shame the once-revered, we are substituting symbols of national unity and meaning with ethnic and racial anthems and independence days. We are heading to a frightful place.

Where did all this come from? It seemed to happen nearly overnight. There was no groundswell for it. All of a sudden, we’ve got players, coaches, and team owners kneeling at the national anthem. NBA players, living the lifestyle of King Midas (think Lebron James, Stephen Curry, et al), are lecturing the rest of us on our moral failings. MLB got into the act with both feet.

That’s just professional sports. The uber-rich are now linking arms with the uber-left. The Fortune 500 are routinely running shaming and indoctrination sessions for their employees. If you’re a Republican who’ll blast Trump – think Liz Chaney (R, Wy.) – your reelection coffers will be brimming with cash. Most commonly, the money spigot from the Sorors types will be turned wide open for lefties in local DA races to the top of the political food chain, Dem candidates for the presidency. Mediocrities like “Beto” O’Rourke can quickly become a player.

Big Money, Big Sports, Big Business, Big Media, Big Entertainment, and Big Government are lining up to shove down our throats an extremist ideology, one that only yesterday was relegated to the rantings of college snowflakes. America as we knew her is quickly disappearing, to be replaced by a gaggle of warring tribes.

Don’t blame the George Floyd incident for it. There’s no evidence that Chauvin was a racist; he’s just a bad cop, an equal-opportunity abuser. Blame the ubiquitous connectivity of the ever-present cell phone and its instant feed into the digestive tract of our cultural big-everythings.

But ultimately, the culpability lies with the ignorance, perfidy, status-groveling nature, and extreme social isolation of many of our cultural heavies, ensconced as they are in their gated villas and penthouses in swank, bi-coastal bastions. They’ve abandoned America, and now they are force-feeding the hot mess to the rest of us. Sad, oh so very sad.

RogerG

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Bob Dylan’s Lesson for the Young

Not long ago, after the announcement of Bob Dylan’s 2016 award of the Nobel Prize in literature, I posted this performance of his “My back Pages”. Really, the lyrics are most apt as a lesson for the young who have ventured into a love affair with socialism and race-based neo-Marxism. Many don’t have a kind word for the USA. Dylan presents for them a cautionary warning in the lyrics of the song. Applied to today’s circumstances, the message would be to think again before you protest the flag, tear down statues, shout to defund the police, and march for socialism.

“My Back Pages”, first recorded in 1964 when he was 23, expressed Dylan’s disillusionment with the 60’s youth movement. One pundit wrote, “Dylan began to be disillusioned with the idealistic narrowness that surrounded him.”

Dylan’s disenchantment is encapsulated in the song’s refrain: “I was so much older then; I’m younger than that now.” When we’re young, everything seems so crystal clear before we get a chance to be softened by experience. Thus, we claim a wisdom of the old without having gotten there, only later to discover our profound errors.

Read the lyrics. Choice lines are found throughout, such as the following stanza sung by Eric Clapton,

“A self-ordained professor’s tongue
Too serious to fool
Spouted out that liberty
Is just equality in school
“Equality,” I spoke their word
As if a wedding vow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I’m younger than that now.”

“Self-ordained professor’s tongue” could apply to many of the denizens of our faculty lounges. “Equality”, Dylan seems to imply, is a very loose word. In today’s politico-jargon, it’s been recast as “equity”, or equality of result. Is the pursuit of “equity” even wise? How much devastation will its pursuit leave in its wake? The young didn’t consider the possible unintended effects of a blind focus on “equality” back then, and the young certainly aren’t having any second thoughts today.

Antifa march, Berkeley, Ca.

There’s much in the song’s words for adult reflection. There’s much in the words for our rambunctious social justice warriors to bear in mind.

The lyrics are below. Please read the lyrics and then play the video below.

My Back Pages (Bob Dylan)

Crimson flames tied through my ears, rollin’ high and mighty traps
Pounced with fire on flaming roads using ideas as my maps
“We’ll meet on edges, soon,” said I, proud ‘neath heated brow
Ah, but I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now

Half-wracked prejudice leaped forth, “rip down all hate,” I screamed
Lies that life is black and white spoke from my skull, I dreamed
Romantic facts of musketeers foundationed deep, somehow
Ah, but I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now

Girls’ faces formed the forward path from phony jealousy
To memorizing politics of ancient history
Flung down by corpse evangelists, unthought of, though somehow
Ah, but I was so much older then. I’m younger than that now

A self-ordained professor’s tongue too serious to fool
Spouted out that liberty is just equality in school
“Equality,” I spoke the word as if a wedding vow
Ah, but I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now

In a soldier’s stance, I aimed my hand at the mongrel dogs who teach
Fearing not that I’d become my enemy in the instant that I preach
My existence led by confusion boats, mutiny from stern to bow
Ah, but I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now

Yes, my guard stood hard when abstract threats too noble to neglect
Deceived me into thinking I had something to protect
Good and bad, I define these terms quite clear, no doubt, somehow
Ah, but I was so much older then I’m younger than that now

RogerG

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Pure Poppycock

Befuddled American voter?

Politico-speak on the stump is a crock. Not always, but it happens often enough for many to avoid politician interviews like an evasive maneuver to escape an encounter with one of the many homeless madmen wondering the streets of downtown Los Angeles. Trump prattles on about the Chinese paying “paying billions and billions of dollars” in US tariffs, apparently not knowing, or not caring, that businesses don’t pay business taxes – of which tariffs are. We do! Biden and his Democratic Party coterie babble on about the “rich paying their fair share”. It’s all just stupendous nonsense. But, apparently, a block of the public eats it up.

No more accurate indictment of the current state of journalism, the schools, and media can be found than the popular currency of pure tripe. Since Biden, Pelosi, and Schumer currently possess the lion’s share of power, their balderdash takes center stage, because they now have the reins to foist it on us. Conversely, the job of the Republicans is to stand athwart history and say “Stop!”

So, what of this “fair share” blabbering? Simply put, it ain’t true. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) numbers don’t support the popular fiction of the rich escaping the taxman while the little guy and gal gets punched in the gut by the tax code. It’s class pandering reminiscent of the kind perpetrated by Marxists – or in its newest incarnation in the race-pandering of Kendi’s or Deangelo’s Systemic Racism.

Let’s take a look at the numbers. Fact: U.S. income taxes in terms of who pays what are the most progressive in the world (Thank you, Marian Tupy of the Cato Institute’s Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity). I don’t see how they can be made more progressive without the targets turning over their entire income receipts to the U.S. Treasury. The top 1 percent of wage earners account for 40.1 percent of all federal income tax receipts in 2018, and this after Trump’s so-called “gift to the rich” in the Republican tax reform bill. The Tax Foundation found that the richest of the rich – the top 1 percent – paid a greater share (40.1) than the bottom 90 percent (25.4). Average paid tax rates tell a similar story. The Dems are engaging in the old gambit of the Big Lie, and it’s that simple.

Why do they lie? Well, they share with Marxists the same hate for the rich – and like Kendi and Deangelo of CRT fame grovel in a hate of “whiteness”. The hate is tied to the Marxist flimflammery of systemic class oppression. Marx called it Scientific Socialism in the same manner of all demagogues who seek to monopolize the word “science” to magically turn their dictums into imperial truths. But if the well-to-do are in the catbird seat according to the hucksters, who are the uber-rich politically supporting? You’d be forgiven for assuming that the greater the wealth, the greater the propensity and power to bend the state to further the material interests of those who own the greatest share of the national wealth. Oh, how shocked you’d be when the reality is uncovered.

Three of the Dems’ big underwriters: Tom Steyer, Michael Bloomberg, George Soros

Point of fact, it was disclosed in various reports. In 2020, The eat-the-rich crowd under Biden overwhelmingly got the backing of the billionaire class. According to Forbes, Trump got 133 billionaires to throw some cash his way. Biden benefitted from 230. In raw numbers from the Federal Election Commission, Biden was drowning in $1.074 billion in his basement as Trump garnered $812 million.

What’s with the super-rich? Why invest in your own demise? Many answers are possible. Certainly, Trump is a lightning rod who instills profound love in some and manifest hate in others, in equal measure. Trump-hate played a role. Also, it could be that these people are so well-heeled that they’re insulated from the consequences of their beliefs to such an extent that fantasies can be seriously entertained. But I think that something more profound is afoot.

Somehow, it’s gotten into the heads of the Zuckerberg-to-Bloomberg crowd that to be considered well-rounded smart and sophisticated means to be a lefty. Lefty is fashionable. Esteem within the group won’t be acquired if you’re driving into the parking lot of your effete soirée in a pickup truck flying the Gadsden flag. A chauffeur-driven Jaguar and the spouting of lefty drivel will earn the necessary style points.

But in the end, it’s all pure poppycock. The Marxism-without-saying-so is still ruinous. Systematized envy, the very essence socialism, is never a path to prosperity. Similarly, the never-ending hunt for white racism will never be a path to social peace any more than it was when Jim Crow was a popular socio-political menu choice. The real Jim Crow 2.0 isn’t the Georgia election law. It’s what is arising out of the growing CRT industry.

Once again, it comes down to pure poppycock, but this poppycock isn’t some knock-off little innocent thing. This time, it’s got the backing of some very deep pockets. Watch out, America.

RogerG