The group that runs the prominent fact-checking site PolitiFact is using money from Left-leaning activists to pay journalists “grants” of $10,000 or more to write about “extremism,” “anti-transgender groups,” and the successes of Joe Biden’s budget-busting American Rescue Plan.
The Poynter Institute, which holds itself out as a nonpartisan group of journalism experts, is using money from the Joyce Foundation, the Gill Foundation, and the Catena Foundation to fund classes for journalists across the country guiding them on how to cover topics such as &#8220;climate change&#8221; and &#8220;transgender medical care.&#8221; Some participants will then be paid grants, bankrolled by activist foundations, to write about particular topics for their employers.
Almost all the <a href="https://www.poynter.org/shop/reporting-editing/beat-academy-2024/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Beat Academy</a> classes have an apparent political bias, often mirroring the activism of the funders. On February 1, for example, participants in the “Extremist Politics” session will “learn how to background candidates for extremist ties,” including on “school boards.” They will “gain access to extremism resources and researchers.”
Three participants will be awarded “$10,000 reporting grants” to write about “extremism.”
The next session on February 29 trains journalists to write articles criticizing Joe Biden from the left, saying, “Biden promised to make life better in disadvantaged and marginalized communities by targeting them with billions of dollars tied to climate change, affordable housing… and more. Is it working?” The panelists will explain “the forces and factors that eased and impeded the ability of deserving communities to access these funds.”
Two journalists will be paid a total of $20,000 to write articles heralding the successes of Biden’s massive spending package the American Rescue Plan: “Enrollees can apply for one of two $10,000 reporting grants to capture how certain communities have used the funds to good effect.”
One of the foundations behind the journalism-for-hire program, the Joyce Foundation, “invest[s] in evidence-informed public policies and strategies to advance racial equity.” Vice President Kamala Harris <a href="https://twitter.com/KamalaHarris/status/1322963321994289154" target="_blank" rel="noopener">defines</a> “equity” as the radical idea of forced equal outcomes, where “we all end up in the same place.”
The funds will be used to give journalists a “generous travel grant” and room and board to take 25 journalists on a group trip to the southern border to focus on, “How domestic labor demand and politically-driven immigrant busing expose flaws in the system.”
They will “see how the Texas busing program exposes the weak spots in the legal immigration system” and be steered to write stories saying businesses crave illegal immigrants by teaching them how to “identify the industries and employers who are seeking immigrant workers in your area.”
In April, journalists will be taking a subsidized class on “transgender coverage,” “Mapping out the landscape of anti-transgender groups and their funders.”
“Enrollees can apply for one of three reporting grants of $10,000-$15,000 to explore how the transgender debate has touched lives in their area,” Poynter said.
The program is funded in part by the <a href="https://gillfoundation.org/priorities/equal-treatment/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Gill Foundation</a>, a gay activist group dedicated to shaping state policies.
In July, a “voting systems” class “expands on our webinars on extremism” to “get the latest on election worker threats” and “zero in on the new rules in your state that might expand or limit the ease of casting a ballot.”
The last session focuses on convincing all local reporters to inject “climate change” into their coverage. “There is no facet of our lives that doesn’t overlap with climate change. People worry about AI run amok; it’s also a major energy hog. The value of your home could take a hit due to updated flooding maps. The fashion industry is responsible for 8-10% of global emissions. General assignment and beat reporters alike: There’s a climate change story waiting for you,” the description says.
The program is designed to cheerlead the effect of government programs, with Poynter advertising it as “the perfect complement to our earlier Beat Academy session on the impact of federal climate and energy programs on disadvantaged communities.”
Only the panelists on “extremist politics” are listed, but they consist almost exclusively of leftist activist reporters.
“Robert Downen is a reporter covering democracy and the threats to it, including extremism, disinformation and conspiracies,” one bio says.
Another panelist, Jennifer Dresden, “is a Policy Strategist at Protect Democracy,” an advocacy group that <a href="https://lawfortruth.org/litigation/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">sues conservative journalists</a>, including Project Veritas, One America News, and filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza.
Protect Democracy says that “<a href="https://protectdemocracy.org/work/can-democracy-survive-racism-strategy/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">right-wing and far-right violence</a> ranked highest among experts’ concern,” and that it “uses the tools of strategic litigation and public education to counteract those who intentionally or recklessly spread false information that undermines our democracy.” It advocates for “securing accountability for the January 6th Insurrection.”
A third extremism panelist, Christopher Jones, was “a reporter for 100 Days in Appalachia where, as a digital and forensic reporter, he focuses on white supremacists and their disinformation campaigns.” Jones wrote that &#8220;far right extremists have penetrated law enforcement,&#8221; that Ben Shapiro is &#8220;alt-right&#8221; and promotes fascism, and that Antifa should not be compared to right-wing &#8220;extremist&#8221; groups because there was &#8220;no such threat&#8221; of &#8220;violent far-left activists&#8221; and &#8220;no one has ever been charged with or convicted of a terrorist act on behalf of antifa.&#8221;
&#8220;During the 2016 election cycle and the ascension of Donald Trump, public displays of racism and fascist rhetoric that had caused the 1980s antifa movement emerged once again,&#8221; he wrote, while promoting the misinformation that he &#8220;watched as Brian Sicknick, a Capitol Police officer, was beaten to death with flagpoles with American flags affixed to them.&#8221;
Although Poynter was originally founded to support journalists, it has since aligned with the “disinformation” industry that tries to discredit media outlets that report things other than government-approved storylines.
One of the funders of the Beat Academy and grants, the Catena Foundation — tied to Sam R. Walton, the son of Walmart’s founder — bankrolled the <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/1027224/disinformation-inc-state-department-silent-on-if-it-will-cut-ties-with-conservative-blacklist-group/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Global Disinformation Index</a>, a notorious British project that accepted money from the U.S. government and put mainstream center-right publications like Reason Magazine and the New York Post on a list that was used to try to bankrupt the companies by dissuading advertisers from doing business with them. (The Daily Wire is <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/daily-wire-and-the-federalist-sue-biden-state-department-over-censorship-effort" target="_blank" rel="noopener">suing the State Department</a> for allegedly funding tools used for domestic censorship.)
Jon Greenberg, a former PolitiFact writer who leads the Beat Academy, said Poynter is a “nonpartisan organization that trains journalists” and declined to share any Beat Academy classroom materials or lesson plans with The Daily Wire.

7E98BB8C-BB96-44C6-BC8A-E0D512D5E7B5_1_105_c

PolitiFact’s Parent Company Is Paying Local Journalists To Write About Transgenders, ‘Extremists,’ And ‘Good Effects’ Of Biden

Censorship

Media Bias

PolitiFact

<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/randi-weingarten-is-gaslighting-us-she-fought-to-keep-schools-closed-not-open" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Randi Weingarten</a> thinks you are an idiot.
The American Federation of Teachers union president, a lady who makes a <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/aft-president-randi-weingarten-salary" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a> nine times the average teacher&#8217;s salary, is on a bit of a torrent to rewrite COVID history. As she tells it, she wasn&#8217;t hellbent on holding your child&#8217;s education hostage during the pandemic; she wanted to get those kids back in school as quickly as possible. As supposed &#8220;proof&#8221; of her heroism, Weingarten has been touting a report from Politifact that artificially absolves her from any wrongdoing or feet-dragging during COVID.
Don&#8217;t let her — or Politifact — <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/twitter-users-set-the-record-straight-after-politifact-says-randi-weingarten-advocated-for-reopening-schools-during-pandemic" target="_blank" rel="noopener">get away with the whitewashing of history</a>. Her actions stunted an entire generation of kids and unleashed a deluge of negative consequences as a result of keeping kids out of school for so long.
For example, Weingarten is now saying that since the spring of 2020, she wanted schoolchildren back in classrooms and learning from teachers.
&#8220;We spent every day from February on trying to get schools open,&#8221; Weingarten testified before Congress last week. &#8220;We knew that remote education was not a substitute for opening schools.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
AFT President Randi Weingarten: &quot;We spent every day from February on trying to get schools open. We knew that remote education was not a substitute for opening schools.&quot; <a href="https://t.co/1qNL05VD3u">pic.twitter.com/1qNL05VD3u</a>
&mdash; Washington Free Beacon (@FreeBeacon) <a href="https://twitter.com/FreeBeacon/status/1651307624418164736?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 26, 2023</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
But in the spring of 2020, she said schools could only re-open if done &#8220;safely.&#8221; What did &#8220;safely&#8221; look like to Weingarten? Well, at the time she said that in-school learning could only happen if teachers across America received at least an “additional 19% — $116.5 billion — from pre-virus funding levels to stabilize budgets and then reopen safely.&#8221;
The New York Times, which also is running cover for Weingarten, noted that her union had a list of demands in April reopening:
<blockquote>The A.F.T. had issued its <a class="css-yywogo" title="" href="https://www.aft.org/sites/default/files/media/2020/covid19_reopen-america-schools.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">own reopening plan</a> in late April, calling for adequate personal protective equipment, a temporary suspension of formal teacher performance evaluations, a limit on student testing, a cancellation of student-loan debt and a $750 billion federal aid package to help schools prepare to reopen safely and facilitate “a real recovery for all our communities.&#8221;</blockquote>
What does advocating limiting the number of tests or forgiveness of student-loan debt have to do with re-opening safely? Nothing. Weingarten used the pandemic to push for more and more demands and to demonize members of the Trump administration.
<a class="c-link" href="https://onelink.to/dwapp" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-stringify-link="https://onelink.to/dwapp" data-sk="tooltip_parent" aria-describedby="sk-tooltip-7429">CLICK HERE TO GET THE DAILY WIRE APP</a>
As pointed out by <a href="https://hotair.com/david-strom/2023/05/03/politifact-is-trash-n548159" target="_blank" rel="noopener">HotAir&#8217;s David Strom</a>, “Congress wound up passing $190 billion in funding to meet her demands, and it still didn’t move her.&#8221;
In Strom&#8217;s excellent piece, he also flagged a terrific montage showing the myriad ways from 2020 to 2021 that Weingarten delayed in-person learning — even after the science suggested it was safe to do so.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Outstanding compilation of footage of teachers’ union leader Randi Weingarten calling for COVID school closures throughout 2020 and 2021, contrary to her now casting herself as a bold advocate for schools reopening.<a href="https://t.co/UcWjfmqpno">pic.twitter.com/UcWjfmqpno</a>
&mdash; Michael P Senger (@michaelpsenger) <a href="https://twitter.com/michaelpsenger/status/1653804555895988224?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 3, 2023</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
That video is pretty good, but it is nothing compared to the shellacking Weingarten has been receiving thanks to the Community Notes feature — crowdsourced fact-checking — on Twitter.
For example, Politifact tweeted, &#8220;Teachers union President Randi Weingarten advocated for reopening schools with pandemic safety measures. She criticized the Trump administration’s 2020 calls to reopen schools fully, but it’s misleading to claim that she opposed reopening at all.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Teachers union President Randi Weingarten advocated for reopening schools with pandemic safety measures. She criticized the Trump administration’s 2020 calls to reopen schools fully, but it’s misleading to claim that she opposed reopening at all. <a href="https://t.co/Km8FkMkXd2">https://t.co/Km8FkMkXd2</a>
&mdash; PolitiFact (@PolitiFact) <a href="https://twitter.com/PolitiFact/status/1653749253720666115?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 3, 2023</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Politifact&#8217;s conclusion, as the Left would say, is &#8220;missing context.&#8221; What sort of &#8220;context&#8221;? Well, the kind that shows Politifact&#8217;s ruling is complete nonsense.
&#8220;Politifact is misrepresenting Weingarten&#8217;s positions,&#8221; the Community Notes added, replete with notes backing up the assertions. &#8220;She called attempts to reopen schools in the fall of 2020 &#8216;Reckless, callous, cruel&#8217; <a class="css-4rbku5 css-18t94o4 css-901oao css-16my406 r-1cvl2hr r-1loqt21 r-poiln3 r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0" role="link" href="https://t.co/lBQqTXA04Y" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">theguardian.com/us-news/2020/j…</a> Her union pushed aggressively at the local level <a class="css-4rbku5 css-18t94o4 css-901oao css-16my406 r-1cvl2hr r-1loqt21 r-poiln3 r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0" role="link" href="https://t.co/eBOG2NLfas" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">edweek.org/teaching-learn…</a> They continued in 2022 <a class="css-4rbku5 css-18t94o4 css-901oao css-16my406 r-1cvl2hr r-1loqt21 r-poiln3 r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0" role="link" href="https://t.co/QZVPzIRn34" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">nytimes.com/2022/01/08/us/…</a>&#8220;
In January 2021, a CDC study found low transmission of COVID in schools with proper safety precautions — such as social distancing and staying home when sick, and other commonsense guidelines. In other words, the science showed it was safe to be back in school.
The science was not enough for Weingarten. She said it was still too stressful for teachers to go back at the time.
&#8220;All the risk is on the educators, in terms of going back to school buildings,&#8221; she <a href="https://www.wgbh.org/news/education/2021/02/05/teachers-union-president-weingarten-vaccinations-arent-precondition-for-school-reopening-but-need-to-be-priority" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> at the time. &#8220;The science is one thing, but the moment — psychologically — you [return to in-person classrooms], you’re always wondering if you’re the case, if you’re the one in 100.&#8221;
While Weingarten was running around doing media interviews, mental health problems for America&#8217;s youth were skyrocketing, as were drug addictions, and learning loss.
When it became patently obvious that untold damage was being done, and that maybe kids should have been in school long before they finally returned, Weingarten said it was no biggie because &#8220;kids are resilient.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
.<a href="https://twitter.com/danprimack?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@danprimack</a>: Is there a point at which kids&#39; lost education isn&#39;t recoverable?
AFT president <a href="https://twitter.com/rweingarten?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@rweingarten</a>: &quot;No, I don&#39;t believe that. I believe that kids are resilient and kids will recover. But we as adults have to meet their needs.&quot; <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/AxiosOnHBO?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#AxiosOnHBO</a> <a href="https://t.co/Dc4H0Hherc">pic.twitter.com/Dc4H0Hherc</a>
&mdash; Axios (@axios) <a href="https://twitter.com/axios/status/1363682689962901504?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 22, 2021</a></blockquote>
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Weingarten, and Politifact for that matter, each get a big fat &#8220;F” for their COVID revisionism. We&#8217;ll let CNN Senior political analyst and father of four Scott Jennings have the final word.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
.<a href="https://twitter.com/ScottJenningsKY?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@ScottJenningsKY</a> to <a href="https://twitter.com/rweingarten?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@rweingarten</a>: &#8220;I am stunned at what you have said this week&#8230;I think you&#8217;ll find that most parents believe you are the tip of the sphere of school closures&#8230;I hear no remorse whatsoever about the generational damage that&#8217;s been done&#8230;&#8221; <a href="https://t.co/gVCDgpP3dN">pic.twitter.com/gVCDgpP3dN</a>
— Kevin Tober (@KevinTober94) <a href="https://twitter.com/KevinTober94/status/1651778019277537282?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 28, 2023</a></blockquote>
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Randi Weingaretn

Randi Weingarten, Politifact Each Get A Big Fat ‘F’ For COVID History Revisionism

Randi Weingarten, Politifact Get Big Fat ‘F’ For COVID History Revisionism

American Federation of Teachers

COVID

Randi Weingarten

Schools

U.S.

The Republican National Committee shared a comprehensive list of President <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/joe-biden" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Joe Biden&#8217;s</a> biggest whoppers on Tuesday, from his repeated claims that he drove an 18-wheeler to his insistence that a 2004 house fire — which was reportedly contained to his kitchen — had very nearly killed his wife and a couple of fire-fighters.
The list, which the RNC shared on Tuesday, detailed &#8220;21 made-up stories Biden has told about himself as president.&#8221;
First on the list was Biden&#8217;s claim that he &#8220;used to drive&#8221; an 18-wheeler.
&#8220;I used to drive a tractor trailer … I only did it for part of a summer,&#8221; Biden said in 2021 — but <a href="https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/dec/03/joe-biden/no-joe-biden-wasnt-tractor-trailer-driver/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according to Politifact</a>, there is no evidence he ever did that. He did ride in a tractor-trailer once as a senator, however, and he drove a bus one summer during law school.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
1. Biden claimed — on multiple occasions — he “used to drive” an 18-wheeler.
Biden **rode** in an 18-wheeler once nearly 50 years ago. He’s never driven one.<a href="https://t.co/o7Za8LaR4J">https://t.co/o7Za8LaR4J</a>
&mdash; RNC Research (@RNCResearch) <a href="https://twitter.com/RNCResearch/status/1612899797408563200?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 10, 2023</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Whopper number two was Biden&#8217;s claim that he spoke with the <a href="https://dailywire.com/news/biden-claims-he-spoke-to-insulin-inventor-theres-just-one-problem/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">inventor of insulin</a> — but of the several people credited with the discovery of artificial insulin, two were dead prior to Biden&#8217;s birth and there is no evidence that he ever had any contact with the others.
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3. Biden claimed he “had a house burn down with my wife in it” and said they “almost lost a couple firefighters.”
In 2005, Biden’s house had a “small” fire that was contained to the kitchen and “there were no injuries.”<a href="https://t.co/smEweQxg4E">https://t.co/smEweQxg4E</a>
&mdash; RNC Research (@RNCResearch) <a href="https://twitter.com/RNCResearch/status/1612899801410011137?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 10, 2023</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Number three was Biden&#8217;s <a href="https://dailywire.com/news/biden-claims-he-lost-an-awful-lot-in-house-fire-jill-biden-reported-the-small-kitchen-fire-that-was-doused-in-20-minutes/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">repeated claim</a> that a <a href="https://dailywire.com/news/fire-department-responds-to-biden-account-of-2004-fire-calls-incident-insignificant/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">2004 fire</a> in Delaware nearly burned the house down with his wife in it and could have claimed the lives of a couple of the firemen as well — but local reporting suggests that the fire was quickly contained to the kitchen and that no one was injured.
Next on the list was Biden’s claim that he had grown up in the Puerto Rican community in Delaware — where in 1970, Puerto Ricans accounted for 0.39% of the population.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
5. Biden said he remembered “spending time” and “going to” the Tree of Life synagogue after the 2018 shooting.
The synagogue said Biden never visited.<a href="https://t.co/9z0C8jo0fl">https://t.co/9z0C8jo0fl</a>
&mdash; RNC Research (@RNCResearch) <a href="https://twitter.com/RNCResearch/status/1612899805625196554?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 10, 2023</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Then came Biden’s claim that he visited Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Synagogue after the shooting — despite the synagogue having no record of any such visit — and Biden’s assertion that he had served as a liaison to Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir during the Six Day War. That claim was problematic due to the fact that Biden was not yet a senator — and Meir was not yet PM — when that war took place.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
7. Biden claimed his “first job offer” came from Boise Cascade, an Idaho lumber company.
The company said they have “no record of President Biden’s application or of him having worked for the company.”<a href="https://t.co/xLYMpUa1z9">https://t.co/xLYMpUa1z9</a>
&mdash; RNC Research (@RNCResearch) <a href="https://twitter.com/RNCResearch/status/1612899809563656192?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 10, 2023</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Next came Biden’s “first job offer” — which he said came from an Idaho lumber company that has no record of him applying for a job — and his “first arrest,” which he said was for a civil rights protest. However, there are no records showing that Biden was ever arrested or even attended such a protest.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
9. Biden claimed that he had a conversation with an Amtrak conductor in 2012 or 2013 about traveling over 1 million miles on Air Force Two.
The conductor retired in 1993, passed away in 2014, and Biden didn’t reach 1 million miles on AF2 until 2015.<a href="https://t.co/92RvdxUtFc">https://t.co/92RvdxUtFc</a>
&mdash; RNC Research (@RNCResearch) <a href="https://twitter.com/RNCResearch/status/1612899813468545034?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 10, 2023</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Biden’s now-infamous Amtrak story — in which he claimed to have discussed reaching the million-mile mark with a conductor who died before he reached that milestone — was fib number nine.
Coming in at number ten was Biden’s claim that he was “appointed to the Naval Academy in 1965” — despite the fact that he graduated from the University of Delaware in that same year.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
11. Biden claimed oil refinery pollution is the reason “I and so damn many other people I grew up have cancer.”
Biden doesn’t have cancer. He *had* skin cancer, but the cause was sun exposure — not pollution. <a href="https://t.co/cKFXXoZNCp">https://t.co/cKFXXoZNCp</a>
&mdash; RNC Research (@RNCResearch) <a href="https://twitter.com/RNCResearch/status/1612899818463961089?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 10, 2023</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Then came Biden’s claim that he <a href="https://dailywire.com/news/breaking-biden-appears-to-claim-he-has-cancer-from-oil-refineries/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">got cancer</a> from oil-refinery pollution — he did have skin cancer, but that was attributed to sun exposure — and his insistence that he was a full professor at University of Pennsylvania. Records show he never actually taught a class.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
13. Biden claimed his “great-grandpop was” a coal miner — something he has been saying for decades. 
He wasn’t.<a href="https://t.co/qbKkOW64V5">https://t.co/qbKkOW64V5</a>
&mdash; RNC Research (@RNCResearch) <a href="https://twitter.com/RNCResearch/status/1612899824277266437?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 10, 2023</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Next came the claim that his “great-grandpop was a coal miner” (he was not) and his assertion that as VP, he had finally gotten an overdue <a href="https://dailywire.com/news/biden-claims-his-uncle-won-purple-heart-during-world-war-ii-battle-but-details-make-bidens-story-impossible/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Purple Heart</a> for his Uncle Frank. Biden’s Uncle Frank passed away before he was elected Vice President, and did not earn a Purple Heart.
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15. Biden claimed he hit a ball 368 feet “off the wall” at his second Congressional baseball game.
Biden actually went 0-2, according to a 1974 newspaper article. <a href="https://t.co/dXbPJJrfEP">pic.twitter.com/dXbPJJrfEP</a>
&mdash; RNC Research (@RNCResearch) <a href="https://twitter.com/RNCResearch/status/1612899828475863040?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 10, 2023</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Biden also claimed (whopper #15) to have hit a long ball “368 feet off the wall” at his second Congressional Baseball game — where in reality, he was 0 for 2.
Keeping with the sports theme, number 16 was Biden’s claim that his grandfather was an All-American football star at Santa Clara University — but NCAA and SCU records suggest otherwise.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
17. Biden claimed he “could have been an All-American” football player.
Biden played on the *freshman* football team for part of *one* semester in college. That’s it. <a href="https://t.co/rgBhoddAwp">pic.twitter.com/rgBhoddAwp</a>
&mdash; RNC Research (@RNCResearch) <a href="https://twitter.com/RNCResearch/status/1612899832854618120?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 10, 2023</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Biden went on to claim (number 17) that he could have been an All-American, but he played on the freshman team for only one semester. He also said (number 18) that he “almost” walked on to an NFL team and could have made it in the pros.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
19. Biden claimed he was “shot at” overseas — something he also lied about in 2007.
It never happened.<a href="https://t.co/kX424rAwhE">https://t.co/kX424rAwhE</a>
&mdash; RNC Research (@RNCResearch) <a href="https://twitter.com/RNCResearch/status/1612899837552517120?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 10, 2023</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Number 19 revisited Biden’s 2007 claim that he was “shot at” while traveling overseas and number 20 was a flashback to his time as a county councilman. He told a story about a woman who called and asked him to remove a dead dog from her lawn, and despite claiming one time that he put it on her doorstep, he said another time that he had removed it.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
21. Biden repeatedly claimed he was “involved” in the civil rights movement.
None of that is remotely true. Biden even admitted in 1987 he was “not an activist.”<a href="https://t.co/ijty46nY83">pic.twitter.com/ijty46nY83</a>
&mdash; RNC Research (@RNCResearch) <a href="https://twitter.com/RNCResearch/status/1612899842207916035?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 10, 2023</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
And rounding out the list at number 21 was the president’s oft-repeated claim that he was actively involved in the civil rights movement — despite no evidence that he was involved at all.

President Biden Marks Two Year Anniversary Of January 6 Insurrection

RNC Drops Comprehensive List Of Biden’s Whoppers, Fish Stories, And Fibs

RNC Drops Comprehensive List Of Biden's Whoppers, Fish Stories, And Fibs

Executive

Fact Check

Joe Biden

Republican National Committee (RNC)

Two <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/big-tech" target="_blank" rel="noopener">tech giants</a> on Tuesday announced a $13 million grant to fund <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/fact-checking" target="_blank" rel="noopener">global fact-checking</a> projects. 
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/google" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Google</a> and YouTube <a href="https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2022/google-and-youtube-partner-with-poynters-international-fact-checking-network-on-13-2-million-grant-for-the-global-fact-checking-community/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> they would provide financial support to the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN), an arm of the Poynter Institute, to support “fact-checking initiatives” through 2025. 
“The world needs fact-checking more than ever before. This partnership with Google and YouTube infuses financial support to global fact-checkers and is a step in the right direction,” said Baybars Örsek, the IFCN’s executive director. “And while there’s much work to be done, this partnership has sparked meaningful collaboration and an important step.”
About $12 million of the grant will go to the group’s Global Fact Check Fund, which will disburse money to fact-checking groups from around the world that adhere to its Code of Principles. These include groups in the U.S., Brazil, Nepal, Ukraine, Norway, Spain, Taiwan, South Africa, and India.
Örsek added that IFCN was “grateful to Google and YouTube for their commitment to bolster fact-checkers in an ever-increasing environment of mis- and disinformation.”
According to the Poynter Institute, some funds will go toward a foundation to establish a “neutral and independent selection committee” and other expansions of the fact-checking program. 
The IFCN was established in 2015, and its advisory board <a href="https://ifcncodeofprinciples.poynter.org/board" target="_blank" rel="noopener">includes</a> individuals from various organizations, including PolitiFact and The Washington Post. 
Olivia Ma, who manages Google’s Global News Program and Ecosystem, said that the company believed it had a role in combating “misinformation” and guiding people toward making “informed decisions.” 
“Combating misinformation is an ongoing global challenge for society. We take seriously our role in helping to fight misinformation by continually investing in products, programs and partnerships that help people access high-quality information,” Ma said. 
Some have raised concerns about the growing emphasis on fact-checking in recent years, with critics questioning whether the motivation is to suppress conservative or differing viewpoints. For example, the theory that the novel coronavirus may have leaked from a lab in Wuhan, China, was initially widely maligned by certain fact-checkers as the origin of the respiratory virus. However, Facebook later reversed course, saying that the theory was now up for debate and had not been thoroughly discredited. At around the same time, PolitiFact <a href="https://www.politifact.com/li-meng-yan-fact-check/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">retracted</a> a fact-check it had run on the claim saying that the theory was now more “disputed.” 
This year, Brian Riedl, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a former PolitiFact source, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/meet-the-former-politifact-fact-checker-who-quit-over-left-wing-bias-wanted-me-to-help-them-nail-republicans" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told</a> The Daily Wire that the fact-checking group wanted him to &#8220;help them nail Republicans.” Riedl also claimed PolitiFact would start with a &#8220;rating&#8221; of a claim and then work backward to justify that rating.

Google Opens Cloud Hub In Krakow, Poland

‘The World Needs Fact-Checking’: Tech Giants Giving $13 Million To Fund Global Fact-Checking Initiatives

Tech Giants Giving $13 Million Toward Global Fact-Checking Initiatives

Fake News

Google

Media

World

YouTube

An economist who formerly worked with the fact-checking site PolitiFact as one of the website’s go-to sources for fact-finding says he quit over the company’s Left-wing bias.
Brian Riedl, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, told The Daily Wire that he worked with PolitiFact over a decade ago when the fact checking site had first launched. Riedl said PolitiFact journalists consulted him on dozens of articles and ratings before he stopped working with the fact-checking site over its bias.
“Conservatives have a right to be suspicious of PolitiFact because their reporters openly shared their biases with their sources,” Riedl told The Daily Wire. “They would start with a rating and then ask their sources for ammunition to justify a preset rating. It was brazen.”
PolitiFact approached Riedl around 2007 to see if he would be a regular expert source for reporters to call for fact checking. At the time, Riedl was working as an economic expert at the conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation and had developed a reputation for being critical of former President George W. Bush’s financial policy.
<div id="attachment_380970" style="width: 210px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-380970" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="size-medium wp-image-380970" src="https://www.dailywire.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Brian-Riedl-200x300.jpeg" alt="Brian Riedl/courtesy of the Manhattan Institute" width="200" height="300" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2022/05/Brian-Riedl-200x300.jpeg 200w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2022/05/Brian-Riedl.jpeg 333w" sizes="(max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px" />Brian Riedl/courtesy of the Manhattan Institute</div>
“I had established a pretty notable reputation in Washington for pummeling President Bush for runaway spending, and it got me a lot of media love at the time — that I was a Heritage Foundation employee who was criticizing a Republican president,” Reidl said.
“For a lot of reporters, the best source is a conservative willing to trash Republicans. They came to me and basically thought that because I had criticized Bush so much on runaway spending, that I would provide a veneer of bipartisan credibility by trashing republicans in their fact-checking,” he explained.
“When I started criticizing Obama for the same thing a few years later, suddenly all the reporters didn’t like me,” Reidl continued.
Riedl stated that PolitiFact reporters revealed their bias in several ways. According to Riedl, reporters would explicitly ask for quotes hitting Republicans, or they would ask if Riedl knew of any outrageous statements from Republicans that were ripe for fact-checking.
Riedl said many times reporters would consult with him only to disagree with his assessment and leave his comments out of their articles. Reporters would go “expert shopping,” or contact specialists with similar biases to the reporter in order to substantiate a preset narrative. He said that many articles he consulted on were published without his comments, but they contained remarks from different experts who had voiced opinions critical of the GOP or conservatives. 
“They were employing double standards. They were using straw men. They were presetting the rating before they talked to people,” Riedl recalled. “And their response was if you are not going to give us the ammunition and arguments we want, then we’ll find someone else who will.”
In 2013, The Center for Media and Public Affairs at George Mason University<a href="https://cmpa.gmu.edu/study-media-fact-checker-says-republicans-lie-more/"> reviewed</a> the ratings of 100 PolitiFact articles from the first four months of former President Barack Obama’s second term. The researchers, using PolitiFact fact checks, reported that a “leading media fact-checking organization rates Republicans as less trustworthy than Democrats.”
The researchers did not audit the fact-check ratings, nor did they process through which sources PolitiFact had chosen to consult or which statements the site chose to fact check. Beyond the researchers’ topline takeaway, they admit that the best their study can show is “how individuals, groups, political parties, etc. are portrayed in this increasingly important genre of political journalism” (emphasis added). 
The findings, at least, are as supportive of Riedl’s claims as those of the university researchers. According to the researchers:
<blockquote>PolitiFact rated 32% of Republican claims as “false” or “pants on fire,” compared to 11% of Democratic claims – a 3 to 1 margin. Conversely, Politifact rated 22% of Democratic claims as “entirely true” compared to 11% of Republican claims – a 2 to 1 margin.
A majority of Democratic statements (54%) were rated as mostly or entirely true, compared to only 18% of Republican statements. Conversely, a majority of Republican statements (52%) were rated as mostly or entirely false, compared to only 24% of Democratic statements.
Despite controversies over Obama administration statements regarding Benghazi, the IRS and the Associated Press, Republicans have continued to fare worse than Democrats, with 60% of their claims rated as false so far this month (May 1 – May 22), compared to 29% of Democratic statements – a 2 to 1 margin. 
This study’s findings are similar to those of a previous CMPA study, which found that PolitiFact gave more negative ratings to the Romney campaign than the Obama campaign during the 2012 presidential election campaign. </blockquote>
“Through the years, I have continued to follow their ratings, and a lot of the same people are still there — and their ratings are a joke,” Riedl said. “They make huge elementary factual mistakes in their fact checks. It’s all motivated reasoning.”
“When you read their fact checks, it is painfully obvious that they often decided on the rating first and backward reasoned their way through intellectual logical backflips, trying to come up with any way to justify the rating,” he continued. “They’re a joke.”
The title of this article has been revised for clarity. The economist was a source for Politifact, not a fact-checker.

Politifact

Meet The Former Politifact Source Who Quit Over Left-Wing Bias: ‘Wanted Me To Help Them Nail Republicans’

Readers Pass

On Monday, PolitiFact published a fact check of a comment made by Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears (R-VA) in which she said the “Loudoun County School Board spent about $300,000 – that’s real money, that’s going-to-jail money – to bring [Critical Race Theory] CRT in some form or fashion to the school system.”
PolitiFact claimed in its “<a href="https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2022/jan/24/winsome-sears/did-loudoun-county-va-schools-pay-about-300000-cri/">fact check</a>” that Earle-Sears vastly overstated the amount of money spent by the Loudoun County School Board:
<blockquote>We asked Earle-Sears’ office three times for the source of her claim about Loudoun’s $300,000 investment in critical race theory and did not get a reply. It seems apparent, however, that she greatly overstated the $34,167 cost of seminars about critical race theory and equity training the Loudoun school system held for top officials in late spring, 2020.
…
Wayde Byard, said the seminar was held to familiarize senior school officials with critical race theory. “It’s an academic construct that’s been around 45 years,” he said.
We asked Byard if the county has spent funds on critical race theory beyond the $34,167 for the seminars. “No, that’s about it,” he said.</blockquote>
PolitiFact also reached out to a school spokesperson who said the county has not spent anything beyond the $34,167 amount on CRT. For that, PolitiFact rated Earle-Sears’ comment as “Mostly False.”
But The Daily Caller’s Chrissy Clark posted screenshots of expenditures showing Loudoun County did spend upward of $300,000 to Equity Collaborative LLC, which <a href="https://theequitycollaborative.com/what-is-equity-coaching/">says</a> it provides “equity coaching” to “to help organizations develop their own capacity to create educational equity and social justice by addressing bias and oppression.” While the website predictably doesn’t say it promotes CRT, yet all the hallmarks of its influence are there.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
.<a href="https://twitter.com/PolitiFact?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@PolitiFact</a> is calling out <a href="https://twitter.com/WinsomeSears?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@WinsomeSears</a> for “falsely claiming” that LCPS paid “about $300,000” for critical race theory-inspired training.
Well, your humble Poynter alumni is here with receipts. And LCPS DID pay upwards of $300k for such training<a href="https://t.co/67dfCjaORz">https://t.co/67dfCjaORz</a> <a href="https://t.co/OXT78tRiHm">pic.twitter.com/OXT78tRiHm</a>
— Chrissy Clark (@chrissyclark_) <a href="https://twitter.com/chrissyclark_/status/1486005872316891139?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 25, 2022</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The screenshots from Clark show the Loudoun County school system made seven payments to Equity Collaborative since 2018, with the largest payment made in June 2019 for a whopping $242,000. The final payment, made in June 2020, was for $34,167 – the exact amount PolitiFact and Byard said the school paid in total. Adding up the payments totals more than $300,000.
PolitiFact has yet to correct or update its fact check of Earle-Sears, and also appeared to miss that this topic was addressed by former George W. Bush speechwriter Marc Thiessen in The Washington Post last November. As Thiessen wrote at the time:
<blockquote>Virginia’s Loudoun County Public Schools, which were ground zero in the debate over the role of parents in their kids’ education, paid <a href="https://defendinged.org/report/the-equity-collaborative/">$314,000</a> for critical race theory coaching for its teachers from the <a href="https://theequitycollaborative.com/">Equity Collaborative</a> — a consulting firm that turns critical race theory into practices for “building more equitable learning environments.” In its presentation “Introduction to Critical Race Theory” the Equity Collaborative instructs teachers that racism is “an inherent part of American civilization” and attacks “ideas of colorblindness, the neutrality of the law, incremental change, and equal opportunity for all” for maintaining “whites’ power and strongholds within society.” It also questions “the idea of meritocracy” which “allows the empowered … to feel ‘good’ and have a clear conscience” and concludes with a breakout session for teachers to discuss “How might you use CRT to identify and address systemic oppression in your school, district or organization?”</blockquote>
As Hot Air <a href="https://hotair.com/john-s-2/2022/01/25/politifacts-fact-check-of-va-lt-gov-appears-to-have-missed-something-n443959">pointed out</a>, the organization that discovered the CRT spending, Parents Defending Education, “actually <a href="https://defendinged.org/report/the-equity-collaborative/">split the district’s spending</a> into two categories, $34,000 for Equity Collaborative training including CRT and another $314,000 for EQ &#8216;training.&#8217; Maybe this is the gimmick that Politifact is relying on. Only $34,000 was explicitly about CRT while the rest was merely CRT adjacent.”

Virginia Republican Gubernatorial Candidate Glenn Youngkin Holds Election Night Rally

PolitiFact Claims Virginia Lt. Gov. Greatly Overstated Amount Spent On CRT. They Missed A Few Payments.

Critical Race Theory

Winsome Sears

PolitiFact slammed liberal Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor for claiming during oral arguments over the Biden administration’s vaccine mandate on Friday that more than 100,000 children were in &#8220;serious condition&#8221; due to the coronavirus.
&#8220;We have over 100,000 children, which we’ve never had before, in serious condition, and many on ventilators&#8221; due to coronavirus, Sotomayor <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/justice-sotomayor-totally-botches-covid-19-facts-about-omicron-children-in-hospital-in-line-of-questioning">said</a>.
PolitiFact rated the statement as &#8220;False,&#8221; <a href="https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2022/jan/07/sonia-sotomayor/fact-checking-sotomayor-kids-severe-covid-19/">writing</a> in-part:
<blockquote>While the number of coronavirus-positive pediatric hospitalizations has risen with the spread of the omicron variant, Sotomayor’s number was way off.
At the time she made this comment, federal data showed that fewer than 5,000 coronavirus-positive children were in the hospital. In fact, fewer than 83,000 children have been hospitalized for COVID-19 — cumulatively — since August 2020.
There are over 100,000 cases among children, but scientists say that few of those are severe.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
NEW: Justice Sonia Sotomayor said during oral arguments today that “we have over 100,000 children, which we’ve never had before, in serious condition, and many on ventilators” due to the coronavirus. That&#39;s False. <a href="https://t.co/9itoVd1s1L">https://t.co/9itoVd1s1L</a> <a href="https://t.co/zX8Nf6Bx8r">pic.twitter.com/zX8Nf6Bx8r</a>
&mdash; PolitiFact (@PolitiFact) <a href="https://twitter.com/PolitiFact/status/1479608835740508165?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 8, 2022</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
&#8220;Omicron is as deadly as delta and causes as much serious disease in the unvaccinated as delta did,&#8221; Sotomayor also claimed. &#8220;The numbers—look at the hospitalization rates going up. We have more infected people today than we did a year ago in January. We have hospitals that are almost at full capacity with people severely ill on ventilators. We have over 100,000 children, which we&#8217;ve never had before, in serious condition, and many on ventilators.'&#8221;
On Wednesday, White House chief medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/05/fauci-says-multiple-preliminary-studies-find-omicron-is-less-severe-than-delta.html">stated</a> that “multiple sources of now-preliminary data indicate a decrease severity with Omicron.”
The news comes as the U.S. has shattered global records this week for new daily coronavirus cases, despite Democrat President Joe Biden’s pledge to “shut down the virus.”
“No, I don’t think COVID is here to stay, but having COVID in the environment here and in the world is probably here to stay,” Biden <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/588748-biden-says-he-doesnt-think-covid-is-here-to-stay">said</a>. “COVID as we’re dealing with it now is not here to stay, the normal doesn’t have to be. We have so many more tools we developed and we continue to develop that can contain COVID and other strains of COVID.”
Biden’s comments about how he thinks coronavirus is not “here to stay” and that his administration can develop strategies to “contain” it do appear to challenge the advice that Biden was given by six experts this week.
Six former advisers who counseled him during the presidential transition <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/01/06/world/omicron-covid-vaccine-tests">wrote</a> this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association that it was time for Biden to change strategies to something geared toward living with the virus.
The CDC <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210121045133/https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#cases_casesper100klast7days">reported</a> that on January 20, 2021, at 1:16 p.m., there were 400,306 deaths recorded in the U.S. from the coronavirus. Biden <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/01/20/biden-constitutional-noon-sworn-in/">officially</a> became president of the United States at noon on that day.
Since then, the number of people who have died from coronavirus under Biden’s watch is now well over 429,000, according to <a href="https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#cases_casesper100klast7days">recent</a> figures.
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/high-school-teacher-charged-after-putting-child-in-trunk-of-car-over-fear-they-had-coronavirus-report">High School Teacher Charged After Putting Child In Trunk Of Car Over Fear They Had Coronavirus: Report</a>
This report has been updated to include additional information.

Supreme Court Justices Pose For Formal Group Photo

PolitiFact Slams Liberal Justice Sotomayor For Claiming 100K Kids In ‘Serious Condition’ With COVID

Sonia Sotomayor

PolitiFact has hit White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki with a &#8220;false&#8221; rating over her claim about how economists feel about President Joe Biden&#8217;s spending agenda.
Psaki has repeatedly said that economists back Biden&#8217;s $1.75 trillion Build Back Better bill. Last week, for instance, Psaki told reporters that &#8220;no economist out there is projecting that this will have a negative impaction inflation.&#8221;
&#8220;Is it really true that there’s not a single economist who thinks the bill will boost inflation? No,&#8221; PolitiFact reacted in an <a href="https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/nov/18/jen-psaki/jen-psaki-wrong-say-no-economist-thinks-b/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">article</a> published Thursday. &#8220;Many economists have stated for the record that they think the inflationary impact of the bill will be small and brief. But we found lots of economists who say they expect modest inflationary pressure, at least initially.&#8221;
In her November 15 press briefing, Psaki was asked, &#8220;Why should Americans not be concerned that injecting another $1.75 trillion or more would further raise inflation?&#8221;
&#8220;Because no economist out there is projecting that this will have a negative impact on inflation,&#8221; she said. &#8220;And actually, what it will help do is it will help increase economic productivity. It will help economic growth in this country. That, and the Build Back Better Agenda will help reduce inflation, will help cut costs for the American people over the long term.&#8221;
PolitiFact cited some economists as proof. &#8220;I’m an economist, and I disagree,&#8221; Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the center-right American Action Forum, told the fact-checking site.
&#8220;We know there’s lots of spending in the bill, and that it’s front-loaded&#8221; into the earlier years, he said. &#8220;If you cut taxes and increase spending, financed by debt, that will put upward pressure on inflation.&#8221;
Other economists said much the same thing.
&#8220;You should wind up with primarily a deficit-financed spending bill that is going to be rolled out in an economy near full employment … . It will make the labor market even hotter and create even more price pressure,&#8221; said Ethan Harris, head of global economics research at Bank of America.
Michael Feroli, chief U.S. economist for JPMorgan Chase, agreed, telling PolitiFact: &#8220;Right now, anything that expands aggregate demand is not warranted, not advisable. … The economy seems to be operating pretty close to its capacity constraints.&#8221;
The site said massive government spending causing inflation is just &#8220;textbook economics.&#8221;
&#8220;Inflation is the result of too much demand chasing too little supply,&#8221; said John Leahy, a professor of macroeconomics and public policy at the University of Michigan. &#8220;Anyone arguing that the bill is inflationary can point to any standard economic textbook: An increase in government spending should increase demand and thereby increase inflation. This will happen even if the spending is fully paid for through taxes, since the government spending increases demand one for one and the taxes reduce demand only to the extent that firms or consumers reduce their spending as a result, and this reduction is typically less than one for one.&#8221;
In conclusion, PoltiFact wrote:
<blockquote>Psaki said, &#8220;No economist out there is projecting that (the Build Back Better bill) will have a negative impact on inflation.&#8221;
She’s wrong to say that no economist foresees inflation as a result of the bill’s passage. Numerous economists, including some allies of the White House, have gone on the record saying there probably will be inflationary effects, especially in the near term, if the bill is passed.
However, the broad consensus among analysts has been that the bill’s inflationary impact will be modest and brief.
We rate the statement False.</blockquote>

White House Holds Daily Press Briefing

PolitiFact Hits Jen Psaki With ‘False’ Rating

Inflation

Jen Psaki

One of the regular tropes of liberal cable news in recent weeks is how Big Tech is censoring any politicians or other leaders who are spreading misinformation about the coronavirus. They cheer when Sen. Rand Paul gets blocked by YouTube, for example, for questioning the effectiveness of masks.
But these same liberal cable networks are spewing wild misinformation about COVID-19 &#8230; when it comes to smearing conservatives and Republicans. You can call them murderers and terrorists, and the &#8220;independent fact-checkers&#8221; and the social media sites yawn and do nothing. These wild-eyed lies are somehow considered fair game.
For example, on MSNBC&#8217;s &#8220;Morning Joe&#8221; on Aug. 9, co-host Mika Brzezinski used the word &#8220;death cult&#8221; eight times to talk about governors like Ron DeSantis. She sneered that the delta variant was the &#8220;DeSantis variant.&#8221; DeSantis has encouraged vaccines and worked to protect senior citizens from dying of COVID much more effectively than, say, Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
But Mika implied DeSantis was comparable to Jim Jones, who forced 900 followers into mass suicide in the jungles of Guyana in 1978. On Aug.1, CNN&#8217;s Brian Stelter explicitly compared former President Donald Trump to Jones, and no one curbed Stelter on YouTube.
The next day, &#8220;Morning Joe&#8221; turned to its regular guest, Eugene Robinson, a columnist for The Washington Post who suggested DeSantis was killing his own supporters as a strategy.
&#8220;Sickening and killing your political supporters, (it) seems to me is the stupidest and most shortsighted political strategy I&#8217;ve ever heard of. Yet, that&#8217;s what DeSantis is doing,&#8221; he claimed. &#8220;He&#8217;s insisting that pediatric wards fill with COVID patients. It is outrageous to say the least, and frankly, it&#8217;s criminal. It should be criminal.&#8221;
This was their 2020 playbook on Trump, that he was killing his own supporters.
It happened again on Aug. 11, as Joe Scarborough repeated the &#8220;death cult&#8221; smear and attacked &#8220;parents saying &#8216;we&#8217;re going to ignore doctors, we&#8217;re going to ignore science and Jesus is going to take care of our children.&#8217; So we can act reckless medically,&#8221; he sputtered. &#8220;Do they think that Jesus decided to kill over 600,000 people with the COVID virus?&#8221;
Joy Reid unloaded the same garbage pail at MSNBC. On Aug. 10, she smeared DeSantis: &#8220;What is the strategy behind killing children in your own state and letting children die of COVID?&#8221; She condemned &#8220;Gov. DeathSantis&#8221; alongside &#8220;his partner in carnage, Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott.&#8221;
On Reid&#8217;s Aug. 11 show, her guest Malcolm Nance insisted the Republican Party were terrorists like ISIS, Al Qaeda and the Irish Republican Army.
It&#8217;s not only MSNBC that&#8217;s claiming Republicans are a pack of killers. CNN put on a Democrat strategist named Michael Starr Hopkins who proclaimed Republicans &#8220;basically want to turn Florida into a morgue.&#8221;
None of these targeted conservative leaders is someone who&#8217;s merely taking a position contrary to some public health consensus. They are painted as consciously killing people, as murderers and terrorists. If you said anything like this about President Joe Biden, former President Barack Obama or House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, you&#8217;d be &#8220;fact-checked&#8221; and censored.
But no one thinks an &#8220;independent fact-checker&#8221; like PolitiFact cares about these lies. Reid hadn&#8217;t been checked since 2018, and that was rated &#8220;Mostly True.&#8221; The same goes for Scarborough. Brzezinski earned one check, a &#8220;Pants on Fire,&#8221; but that was 2014. Robinson has two &#8220;Mostly True&#8221; ratings. Stelter has one &#8220;True&#8221; from 2015. Nance and Hopkins have no page.
All this underscores that the word &#8220;misinformation&#8221; is applied only to speech that liberals don&#8217;t enjoy. Wild smears about conservatives do not match the definition. Feelings trump facts.
The views expressed in this opinion piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
Tim Graham is director of media analysis at the Media Research Center and executive editor of the blog NewsBusters.org. To find out more about Tim Graham, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

Fake news

GRAHAM: Cable News ‘Death Cult’ Craziness Goes Unpunished

The fact-checking website PolitiFact has come under scrutiny for maintaining that Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) made a “false” statement about the ability to arrest runaway Texas legislators, even after the Texas Supreme Court, per Cruz, &#8220;agreed.&#8221; The website appeared to seize on one word the senator uttered in order to cast doubt on the underlying facts.
“There is clear legal authority to handcuff and put in leg irons legislators that are trying to stop the legislature from being able to do business,” Senator Cruz told USA Today after dozens of Democratic lawmakers fled the state last month to deny Republicans a quorum to pass an election integrity bill. Several members subsequently tested positive for COVID-19.
Cruz said the issue had come before him during his tenure as the state’s Solicitor General (2003 to 2008).
PolitiFact agrees that the Texas state <a href="https://tlc.texas.gov/docs/legref/TxConst.pdf">constitution</a> declares, “Two-thirds of each House shall constitute a quorum to do business, but a smaller number may … compel the attendance of absent members, in such manner and under such penalties as each House may provide” (Article III, Sec. 10).
The website also concedes that the rules of the state House of Representatives <a href="https://capitol.texas.gov/tlodocs/871/billtext/html/HR00005I.htm">say</a>, “All absentees for whom no sufficient excuse is made may, by order of a majority of those present, be sent for and arrested, wherever they may be found.” (Rule 5, Sec. 8.)
But PolitiFact <a href="https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/jul/16/ted-cruz/laws-surrounding-arrests-texas-democrats-are-far-c/">rated</a> Cruz’s statement “False,” because Cruz said the arrest power was &#8220;clear,&#8221; when his “interpretation of the constitution doesn’t appear to be shared by all.”
PolitiFact did not explain when it began demanding absolute unanimity to take sides on political issues.
“The reason why this question lacks clarity is because this hypothetical set of circumstances has no judicial precedent in Texas,” PolitiFact added. “There has been no judicial interpretation of enforcement of Rule 5, Sec. 8 of the House rulebook, and thus no existing authority on the matter in Texas.”
But the highest legal authority in the state has since settled the matter in favor of Cruz and against the website&#8217;s tendentious review. On Tuesday, the Texas Supreme Court <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/texas-supreme-court-gov-abbott-can-order-arrest-of-runaway-democrats-if-they-fail-to-show-for-vote">overturned</a> a lower court ruling temporarily preventing the state’s Republican lawmakers from arresting the runaway Democrats and compelling them to fulfill their duties as elected officials. As The Daily Wire <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-texas-house-speaker-signs-52-arrest-warrants-for-absent-democrat-lawmakers">reported</a>, on the same day, “Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan (R) officially signed civil arrest warrants for 52 House Democrats who refused to show up for another special legislative session, thereby keeping the session from proceeding.”
On Thursday, the state’s law enforcement officers were <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/texas-law-enforcement-deputized-ordered-to-arrest-rogue-democratic-lawmakers-immediately">deputized</a> to execute those arrest warrants.
Legal scholar Jonathan Turley <a href="https://twitter.com/JonathanTurley/status/1425480270749253638">said</a> the decision “has not only exposed the Democrats to arrest but it has exposed another claim of bias against the PolitiFact.”
Senator Cruz agreed, <a href="https://twitter.com/tedcruz/status/1425305149635977217">tweeting</a>, “Yep. The Texas Supreme Court just agreed with me — unanimously. But, of course, PolitiFact still rules the claim ‘false.’ They have yet to issue a correction.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Yep. The Texas Supreme Court just agreed with me—unanimously. 
But, of course, PolitiFact still rules the claim “false.”
They have yet to issue a correction. <a href="https://t.co/TavqAguOwl">https://t.co/TavqAguOwl</a>
&mdash; Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) <a href="https://twitter.com/tedcruz/status/1425305149635977217?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 11, 2021</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
As of this writing, the PolitiFact article still calls Senator Cruz’s since-vindicated analysis “false.”
PolitiFact, which is now part of The Poynter Institute, has faced allegations of politically motivated fact-checking and special pleading on behalf of Democratic causes in the past. So many allegations piled up that in 2018, PolitiFact ran a <a href="https://www.politifact.com/article/2018/nov/06/politifact-not-biased-heres-why/">story</a> titled “PolitiFact is not biased — here’s why.”
But Senator Cruz’s office trusts the state supreme court — and his own exhaustive study of state and federal law — more than the website’s verdict.
“PolitiFact exists to carry water for the Democrat Party, so they’re not interested in the search for truth,” Cruz’s office <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/media/ted-cruz-still-waiting-for-politifact-correction-after-texas-supreme-court-agrees-with-him-on-fleeing-dems">told</a> Fox News. “This is yet another example of Politifact getting it wrong in their shameless attempt to make excuses for Democrat lies, under the false pretense of confirming facts.”
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Senate Judiciary Committee Holds Hearing Examining Voting Rights

‘PolitiFact Exists To Carry Water For The Democrat Party’: PolitiFact Ruled Against Ted Cruz. It Didn’t Go Well.

Ted Cruz

Eight months after the fact, PolitiFact has been forced to walk back a fact check on a claim made on Tucker Carlson&#8217;s Fox News show related to the origins of SARS-CoV-2.
Earlier this week, Tom Kertscher and Noah Kim wrote an overview for PolitiFact “debating the origins of the COVID-19 virus.” “Scientists who have studied the coronavirus have generally concluded that it resembles naturally occurring viruses,&#8221; PolitiFact <a href="https://www.politifact.com/article/2021/may/17/debating-origins-covid-19-virus-what-we-know-what-/">explained</a> in their summary of the piece. &#8220;But researchers are paying more attention to the possibility that the virus somehow leaked from the lab, though there’s still nothing conclusive.&#8221;
In the report, PolitiFact acknowledged that “much uncertainty remains about the origins of COVID-19.” The site provides four “fairly nuanced” points explaining that we do not know where COVID-19 originated, insinuating that there are multiple plausible causes, including a leak from a Wuhan lab.
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">SARS-CoV-2 was first noticed in Wuhan, close to a lab where bat coronaviruses were being studied and far from the location where naturally occurring relatives of the virus were found. However, there are other plausible explanations of how the virus could have made its way to Wuhan besides a lab leak.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Researchers at the Wuhan lab used reverse genetics on bat coronaviruses to create viruses not found in nature. Some of this research was funded by a grant provided by the National Institutes of Health. However, there’s no evidence that this research led to the creation of SARS-CoV-2. </li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Scientists who have studied the coronavirus have generally concluded that it resembles naturally occurring viruses. However, we can’t completely rule out that the virus was somehow manipulated. Some extremely competent forms of gain-of-function research don’t leave signatures or telltale signs of manipulation. </li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">The early outbreak of the coronavirus was linked to various wildlife markets, which lends support to the claim that the virus jumped from animals to humans. However, scientists haven’t yet identified an intermediate host animal that could have incubated the virus before it jumped to humans. </li>
</ul>
This represents a drastic shift in approach to the Wuhan lab theory compared to PolitiFact’s premature, repeated dismissal of it last year. For example, in a <a href="https://www.politifact.com/li-meng-yan-fact-check/">now-archived fact-check</a> from September 2020, PolitiFact claimed that a Tucker Carlson segment included a &#8220;debunked conspiracy theory that COVID-19 was created in a lab.”
In the fact-check from September 16, 2020, Daniel Funke wrote for PolitiFact that “scientists say the coronavirus emerged from bats and later jumped to humans,” and that the genetic structure of the novel coronavirus &#8220;rules out laboratory manipulation.&#8221; PolitiFact stressed at the time that &#8220;public health authorities have repeatedly said the coronavirus was not derived from a lab.&#8221; 
Referencing comments on Carlson&#8217;s show by Dr. Li-Meng Yan, “a virologist and former postdoctoral fellow at the University of Hong Kong,” PolitiFact rejected her claims as “a conspiracy theory that has been debunked since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic.”
What were Dr. Li-Meng Yan’s comments? &#8220;I can present solid scientific evidence to our audience that this virus, COVID-19 SARS-CoV-2 virus, actually is not from nature. It is a man-made virus created in the lab.&#8221;
“The claim is inaccurate and ridiculous,&#8221; the fact checker declared. &#8220;We rate it Pants on Fire!” 
PolitiFact used this same logic to “debunk” multiple similar claims. 
In October 26, 2020, Tom Kertscher — one of the authors of PolitiFact’s latest article, which effectively debunks their own debunking — <a href="https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/oct/26/scott-perry/pa-rep-scott-perry-airs-debunked-claim-wuhan-lab-c/">rejected</a> Rep. Scott Perry’s comments that COVID-19 “in my opinion, was constructed in the Wuhan Institute of Virology and then was spread around the world, either by accident or on purpose” as “False” on Politifact’s “Truth-O-Meter.” 
On <a href="https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/may/21/kimberly-lightford/no-novel-coronavirus-was-not-man-made/">May 21, 2020</a>, PolitiFact’s Kiannah Sepeda-Miller rated Illinois’ Senate Majority Leader Kimberly Lightford’s claim that COVID-19 is “man-made” as “false.” Sepeda-Miller argued that “research shows the genetic features of the virus rule out the possibility it was created or manipulated in a lab.”
Funke rated NaturalNews.com’s claim that “the coronavirus was engineered by scientists in a lab” as “false” as early as <a href="https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/feb/10/naturalnewscom/health-misinformation-site-promotes-conspiracy-abo/">February 10, 2020</a>.
These fact checks are still published but have been amended with an editor’s note. For example, the archived “Pants-on-Fire” fact-check referenced earlier is now preceded by:
<blockquote>When this fact-check was first published in September 2020, PolitiFact’s sources included researchers who asserted the SARS-CoV-2 virus could not have been manipulated. That assertion is now more widely disputed. For that reason, we are removing this fact-check from our database pending a more thorough review. Currently, we consider the claim to be unsupported by evidence and in dispute. The original fact-check in its entirety is preserved below for transparency and archival purposes. <a href="https://www.politifact.com/article/2021/may/17/debating-origins-covid-19-virus-what-we-know-what-/">Read our May 2021 report</a> for more on the origins of the virus that causes COVID-19.</blockquote>
It is currently unclear how many similar posts related to the now-plausible origins of COVID-19 were removed or suppressed based on these forms of now-archived fact-checks.
Ian Haworth is an Editor and Writer for The Daily Wire. Follow him on Twitter at <a href="https://twitter.com/ighaworth">@ighaworth</a>.
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Tucker Carlson

PolitiFact Forced To Pull Fact Check Of Tucker Carlson Coronavirus ‘Conspiracy Theory’ Segment

Wuhan

So-called nonpartisan fact-checking outlet PolitiFact spent President Joe Biden’s first 100 days defending the president from inaccurate Facebook posts instead of fact-checking his numerous falsehoods.
A report from the right-leaning Media Research Center <a href="https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/tim-graham/2021/05/04/study-politifacts-8-times-likely-defend-biden-check-his-facts">found</a> that PolitiFact was eight times more likely to defend Biden than to fact-check him in his first 100 days, a vast difference from how the outlet treated former President Donald Trump. For Trump’s first 100 days, “PolitiFact offered 52 fact checks with a ‘Truth-O-Meter’ ruling of Donald Trump in his first 100 days (January 20 to April 30, 2017), while in the same period this year, PolitiFact offered just 13 fact checks of President Biden,” the MRC found.
As the MRC noted, “the media insist Trump’s in his own category on truth and falsehood,” so the outlet decided to see how often PolitiFact defended Biden as opposed to fact-checking him. The MRC found that for Biden’s first 100 days, PolitiFact fact-checked Biden just 13 times while it defended him from claims made about him 106 times.
“In other words, they’re much more sensitive about someone ‘lying’ about Biden than they are about Biden lying,” the MRC reported. “Many of the fact checks about Biden are about ‘Facebook Posts,’ ‘Viral Images,’ or ‘Tweets.’ Those rulings often translate into content warnings. But there were two ‘Pants on Fire’ rulings for House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, and one each for Fox News and for Tucker Carlson. Liz Cheney got the Flaming Pants for insisting that less than six percent of Biden’s infrastructure package is about infrastructure.”
Surprisingly, the MRC’s report found that even though PolitiFact chose to fact-check Biden far less than it did Trump, the percentage of falsehoods between the two presidents was about the same.
“Perhaps the surprising measurement here is that the percentage of PolitiFact ‘Truth-O-Meter’ rating of Biden and Trump were the same – 61.5 percent. Trump just had four times as many evaluations. Thirty-two of 52 Trump evaluations were defined as ‘Mostly False,’ ‘False,’ or ‘Pants on Fire.’ Eight of 13 Biden evaluations landed on the False side. Biden had zero ‘Pants on Fire’ ratings in the first 100 days. In 2017, Trump had two,” the MRC found.
The fact checks about Biden, however, were overwhelmingly found by PolitiFact to be false, with 91 out of 106 total (which includes pages other than the one simply labeled “Fact Checks About Biden”) labeled as “Mostly False” or worse. That’s an 86% false rating for what PolitiFact chose to fact check.
“There were 24 ‘Pants on Fire’ ratings for Biden critics, 45 ‘False’ ratings, and 22 ‘Mostly False.’ Ten were ‘Half True,’ three were ‘Mostly True’ and two were ‘True,’” the MRC reported.
“Overall, Biden’s PolitiFact page shows he’s been put on the ‘Truth-O-Meter’ 169 times in the website’s history beginning in 2007, and was found to be on the True/Mostly True side 67 times (almost 40 percent) and Mostly False or worse 78 times (46 percent). By contrast, Donald Trump has 931 of these fact-checks, and 692 of them Mostly False or worse (74.3 percent). Trump has 161 ‘Pants on Fire’ ratings. Biden has six,” the MRC concluded.
The outlet didn’t break down the details of the fact checks, including whether they were accurate or left out pertinent information that would change the rating or if they determined something was false when it, in fact, wasn’t or vice versa.

President Biden

PolitiFact Is 8 Times More Likely To Defend Biden Than Fact Check Him: Report

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