Babylon Bee: "'Good Evening,' Says President Trump, Drawing Immediate Flurry Of Fact Checks"

The New York Times pointed out that the meaning of the phrase was vague and that Trump could have meant any one of several things by the statement. Finally, they concluded that since Trump stubbornly insists on existing in our plane of reality, the statement that the evening was "good" in any way couldn't possibly be true:

Snopes Rolls Out New Opinion Check Feature

It's the Babylon Bee.  It's satire, but is it?

"Just checking facts wasn't enough anymore---now, people are looking to Snopes to be the moral arbiter of which opinions are OK and which ones are not," said a spokesperson for the website. "This has been a long time coming. We've pretty much been doing this all along, but disguising it as a 'fact check.' So now we can just be much more upfront with people about what our intentions are."

Read the whole thing.

Sandy "Red" Cortez Whines About Being Fact-Checked, and Suddenly the Leftwing Media Rushes to Agree, "Yes, Fact-Checking is Biased and Ideologically Motivated"

Biased fact checking is only bad when its victims are conservative.

Media Research Center Announces 'Fact-Checking the Fact-Checkers' Project

About time.

A good reason not to leave a cash tip

It appears that the waitresses of the "oppressed minority" persuasion may be faking being stiffed by bigots in order to generate sympathy and get cash sent to them after they spread their stories.

Example:  Dayna Morales is a lesbian and appears to have victimized a couple she waited on.

Dayna Morales, a former Marine and a server at Gallop Asian Bistro in Bridgewater, posted a photo on Facebook earlier this month, showing the bill with a line through the space for a tip. The photo of the receipt showed someone had written, “I’m sorry but I cannot tip because I do not agree with your lifestyle.”
Morales indicated in her Facebook post and in subsequent media interviews . . .that the customer wrote that line.
But a family contacted NBC 4 New York claiming their receipt from the restaurant shows they did leave a tip, and provided what they said was a credit card statement as proof.
The husband and wife, who asked to remain anonymous, showed. . .a receipt that appeared to be printed at the same minute, on the same date, for the same $93.55 total, except with an $18 tip. They also provided a document they said was a Visa bill, which appears to indicate their card was charged for the meal plus the tip, for a total of $111.55.

So, who are you going to believe?

The Anchoress makes the point that you can't ever prove that you left a cash tip and could be victimized by his new wave of fraud and deception.

Because my mother was a waitress who worked for mainly for tips, when my husband and I dine out we will very often strike a line through the “tips” portion of the bill, and leave our gratuity in cash. We do this for a couple of reasons — because often food-servers need the cash to pay the babysitter when they get home; because keeping track of what tips should show up on a paycheck is difficult; because why not let people access their tips immediately?
Well, we may decide to stop leaving cash.

 Another example of self-victimization that netted the server over $10,000 in cash gifts.

The horrible, terrible, deadly danger of coating yourself in banana pudding

You knew that bananas are radioactive didn't you?  The delicious yellow fruit looks so innocent sitting in the produce section of the supermarket ... is full of radioactivity!  It's a killer fruit.  And that granite countertop that you installed?  Radioactive!  If you're not careful, if you stacked bananas on your granite countertop you may set off a nuclear explosion that could devastate half your state.  That is, if you believe the people who write for the press.

That was the subject of an article in PJ Media by Charlie Martin about this rather sensational story from Natural News: 

Japan’s nuclear watchdog has now declared the leak of radioactive water from Fukushima a “state of emergency.” Each day, 300 tons of radioactive water seeps into the ocean, and it’s now clear that TEPCO has engage [sic] in a two-and-a-half-year cover-up of immense magnitude.

Just how out of control is the situation at Fukushima? It’s so out of control that TEPCO recently had to admit 10 of its workers were somehow — yeah, see if you can figure this out — sprayed with highly radioactive water while waiting for a bus.

“The workers’ exposure above the neck was found to be as much as 10 becquerels per square centimeter,” reports Bloomberg.com

How exactly did highly radioactive water manage to find its way to a bus stop in the first place?

Sounds pretty bad, doesn't it? Will these workers live? Do you know what a Becquerel (Bq) is?

I'll let Charlie Martin explain. He explains it in terms of those radioactive bananas (read the whole thing for the details).

Since you went back and re-read that 2011 post when I linked it (you didn’t? But what if there’s a quiz?) you’ll recall that there is a somewhat-joking unit called the banana equivalent. Bananas, like everything else, are slightly radioactive by nature, and in fact it turns out that since bananas concentrate potassium, they’re a little more radioactive than a lot of other things. So, a banana equivalent amount of radioactivity is something that has about the same number of decays per second as a banana does. So what’s the banana-equivalent in Bq?

A normal-sized 150g banana produces about 20 Bq.

So, the “highly radioactive water”? It’s roughly equivalent in radiation danger to coating yourself in banana pudding.

As an aside, the Virginian Pilot has been telling us all the horrible, terrible, deadly, disastrous thing that could happen to us if mining for uranium were allowed in Virginia.  The next time they write one of their hysterical editorials, I'm going to ask them how many bananas would equal the destructive power of an accident at a uranium mine.  

Obama now supports ending Fannie and Freddy. When Palin said Fannie/Freddie were too expensive to taxpayers in ’08, it was a “gaffe”

To call news people stupid is an insult to stupid people.  Back in 2008, the press was calling it Palin's first gaffe.

Palin:

“John McCain has been calling for years to reform things and cut bureaucracy, even at the lending agencies that our government supports. The fact is Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have gotten too big and too expensive to the taxpayers. The McCain-Palin administration will make them smaller and smarter and more effective for homeowners who need help.”

The press, perhaps with the connivance of "Journo-list" decided that this sage advice was incredibly stupid.

McClatchy:

The companies, however, aren’t taxpayer funded but operate as private companies. The takeover may result in a taxpayer bailout during reorganization.

Sam Stein at Huffington Post, who dubbed it Palin’s “first gaffe.”

Economists and analysts pounced on the misstatement, which came before the government had spent funds bailing the two entities out, saying it demonstrated a lack of understanding about one of the key economic issues likely to face the next administration.

“You would like to think that someone who is going to be vice president and conceivable president would know what Fannie and Freddie do,” said Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. “These are huge institutions and they are absolutely central to our country’s mortgage debt. To not have a clue what they do doesn’t speak well for her, I’d say.”

Added Andrew Jakabovics, an economic analyst for the progressive think tank, Center for American Progress:

“It is somewhat nonsensical because up until yesterday there was sort of no public funding there. Even today they haven’t drawn down any of the credit line they have given to Treasury. ‘Gotten too big and too expensive’ are two separate things. The too big has been a conservative mantra for a while and there is something to be said of that in that they hold about half of the mortgage guarantees that are out there. And in the last year they have been responsible for roughly 80 percent out there. The ‘too expensive to tax payers,’ I don’t know where that comes from.”

Jake Tapper:

“Too expensive to the taxpayers?”

They’re private entities.

Though they’re private entities ultimately backed up by the taxpayers.

But the only way Fannie and Freddie are “too expensive to the taxpayers” is if you’re talking about the bailout announced over the weekend.

Is that what she meant?

So, does “too expensive” mean that Palin opposes the bailout?

Or did she misstate how these entities function?

Of course the bailouts cost the taxpayers several hundred billions and the ensuing wreckage costs thousands their homes. But one of the benefits of being consistently wrong in the news business is to never have to say you're sorry. In fact, one of these dunces, Jake Tapper is regarded today as being one of the few reporters that occasionally commits random acts of journalism and is one of the members of the press corps that is often praised by certain parts of the Right.  The fact that he's a stupid ass who is sometimes less objectionable as his brethren still makes him a stupid ass.

The Obama “Jokes” that Aren’t

Glenn Reynolds linked to an article in the Wall Street Journal Tax Audits Are No Laughing Matter; the subhead is “A president shouldn't even joke about abusing IRS power.”

Reynolds commented:

Remember, Obama joked about auditing his enemies in 2009. At the time, I warned about the damage to the “trust and voluntary cooperation of citizens upon which this democracy depends,” but Obama didn’t get much pushback elsewhere. Now, however, people need to be fired, and most likely prosecuted, to drive home the appropriate lesson. And Obama himself needs to be taken to task. The Post editorial is just a start.

Here’s what I have noticed about Obama’s “jokes.” They are a way of disarming the opposition by mocking them. If you joke about sending the IRS after your opponents, it makes it much harder for people the IRS is going after to get other to pay attention. They are going to be laughed at and ridiculed as conspiracy theorists. One of the Tea Party groups that had trouble getting a tax exempt status is in Richmond, Virginia. They complained but got no help from anyone in the press or in government.

Obama has several times joked that he is a Muslim and a Socialist. He did so most recently at the White House Correspondents’ dinner.

“Look I get it,” Obama joked. “These days I look in the mirror, and I have to admit I’m not the strapping, young, Muslim socialist that I used to be.”

It was a laugh line and the Washington Press dutifully laughed. I have no idea whether he is actually religious or not. I believe that his membership in Jeremiah Wright’s black liberation, America damning church was designed to advance his political career rather than his salvation. I also believe, based on his family background and the testimony of friends from his college days, that he is Leftist and believes that the State should be the center of decision making in a society. If that’s the case he is - at best - a socialist. If he actually is either a Muslim or a Socialist making a joke about it is much more effective way of deflecting the accusation than either ignoring it or denying it.

This technique is the flip side of Obama’s straw man argument, his favorite technique. Karl Rove gives several examples in this article in the Wall Street Journal.  Here's one:

On Tuesday night, Mr. Obama told Congress and the nation, "I reject the view that . . . says government has no role in laying the foundation for our common prosperity." Who exactly has that view? Certainly not congressional Republicans, who believe that through reasonable tax cuts, fiscal restraint, and prudent monetary policies government contributes to prosperity.

The use of these rhetorical devices is designed to mislead, much like a magician uses misdirection while he does his tricks. In a politician it's the technique of the rogue, the demagogue. The role of the press should be to expose this kind of deception. It doesn’t even require investigate skills, simply knowledge of the language and awareness of how words can be used to deceive. That’s Journalism 101 and one of the pre-eminent practitioners is James Taranto who writes Best of the Web. Too bad that most of the rest of the press are, as Glenn Reynolds says, "Democrat operatives with bylines."

Obama’s Thirteen Words

Remember George W. Bush’s famous “16 words”? They came from Bush’s 2003 State of the Union speech, where Bush said: “The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.” That was a true statement, but it caused immense controversy, for reasons that are now hard to remember.

Fast forward to 2013, and President Obama’s State of the Union, where he said, talking about global warming: “Heat waves, droughts, wildfires, and floods – all are now more frequent and intense.” That statement was demonstrably false, as SEPP’s The Week That Was points out:

The claim is so factually challenged that it is a wonder it got by the White House staff. Looking at the weather stations that have 80 years of data shows heat records were set in the 1930s, the Palmer drought index shows the 1930s and the 1950s were hotter and dryer with the 1930’s dust bowl lasting a decade. … Increased floods are not supported by the data, and, according to the National Interagency Fire Center, wildfires are declining.

For some reason Obama's lies never cause any controversy in the MSM.

Fact checking the fact checkers.

Fact-checking is evolving from a newspaper dominated activity to a favorite sport on the Internet. After all, all it takes is a computer and a search engine. One of the most popular activities is fact-checking the fact-checkers in the media. I thought I would give it a go after reading the fact-checkers at FactCheck.org, a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania, a blatantly Liberal organization.  This should not surprise anyone since higher ed lists so far Left that Columbia Professor Nicholas De Genova only made news on the Right when he proclaimed

"The only true heroes are those who find ways that help defeat the U.S. military. I personally would like to see a million Mogadishus."

I was searching for information on the Obama administration’s interest in higher gasoline prices. I had just posted a comment on my blog about the ultra-high prices of gasoline in California (taken from DRUDGE) and wanted to create a few links to prove my point. One of the top Google links was to the FactCheck.org analysis which ties itself in knots to convince us that Obama does not want higher gasoline prices.

Here’s an example from FactCheck:

“Republican presidential candidates Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich have repeatedly lifted several quotes out of context to allege that President Barack Obama and his administration actually wanted to drive up the price of gasoline, and have succeeded.”

Asked if $4 per gallon gas prices will help drive consumers to alternative energy sources Obama is quoted as saying: “I think that I would have preferred a gradual adjustment. The fact that this is such a shock to American pocketbooks is not a good thing. But if we take some steps right now to help people make the adjustment, first of all by putting more money into their pockets, but also by encouraging the market to adapt to these new circumstances more quickly, particularly US automakers, then I think ultimately, we can come out of this stronger and have a more efficient energy policy than we do right now.”

The “fact-checkers” at FactCheck respond:

 “It’s true that given the opportunity, Obama did not dismiss the notion outright that higher gasoline prices might be a good idea to create incentives for people to switch to alternative energy sources. But the context of the question was that gasoline had risen to $4 per gallon. The rapid rise in the price of gasoline was, he said, “such a shock to American pocketbooks” and “not a good thing,” and that he would have preferred that they had risen more gradually. That’s different from advocating for gradually higher gasoline prices in the future.”

 

No.  It's.  Not.  You see what they have done here? They first admit that Obama only had a problem with the rate at which gas prices reached $4, but refuse to acknowledge the fact that Obama wants higher gas prices to drive the American people away from using gasoline. After all, the effect of raising prices is to reduce demand. That’s also the rationale behind the high tax on cigarettes. It does not take a super-genius to conclude that Obama would like to see higher gasoline prices in the future. In fact, only someone committed to defending Obama at this point would come to the conclusion Robert Farley and Eugene Kiely (the FactCheck “fact checkers”) came to.  Obama simply stated that it would be a good thing for gas prices to rise, but he would have preferred a "gradual" rise.  What "gradual" means is left to the imagination.  

Next we come to the claim frequently made that the Obama administration would like gasoline prices go even higher, to the price of gas in Europe which is $9 -$10 per gallon. Here we have Dr. Steven Chu making the argument that gasoline prices at that level are designed to

“coax consumers into buying more-efficient cars and living in neighborhoods closer to work.”

 

Coax?  Let's see, fill the gas tank or buy food; what a dilemma!

 

Farley and Kiely come to the Obama/Chu defense in three ways:

• First, Chu made the statement before he became Secretary of Energy but denied that was his goal before a Congressional panel after he became Energy Secretary.
• Second, the original comment was made in the context of raising gas taxes.
• Third, Federal gas taxes have not increased.

Each of these attempts to deny the obvious are transparently phony.

 

• First, are we to assume that Chu was hired by Obama despite his interest in hiking gas prices to make alternative energy more competitive? After all, this is the guy who shoveled $90 billion out the door on failed projects such as Solyndra. The administration can't admit to the public that it wants gas prices to rise, it simply implements policies that cause them to rise and then deny responsibility.  The energy policies of the Obama administration are perfectly congruent with Chu’s original – pre-appointment desire to see gas at $10 (or higher if necessary). For evidence, see the administration’s shutting down exploration and drilling on public land, and the EPA’s interest in ending fracking on “environmental” grounds. The Obama administration wants to transform the energy Americans use from fossil fuels to wind, solar and “alternative” sources. Simple economics requires higher fossil fuel prices in order to make these “alternative” fuels more competitive.

 

• Second, the context was the desire to see gas prices rise. Period. You don’t interview Dr. Chu for his views on tax policy. If market forces don’t raise gas prices, the government can raise prices at its pleasure by raising taxes. See the example of local, state and federal taxes in New York City on a pack of cigarettes ($4.35 State tax, $1.50 city tax and $1.00 federal tax = $6.85 in taxes per pack). One of the tools may be raising taxes but the focus was to raise gas prices. If the desired objective could be reached by other means, the objective remains the same.

 

• Third, the fact that gas taxes have not increased even as gas prices have more than doubled is not an argument against the underlying policy, it’s simply a snarky way of trying to cover up for a policy that is clear and consistent.

This is a typical example of the media and its acolytes basically lying about facts to promote their agenda.

 

But it is fun.  There are more of us than there are of them and their hold on the public’s mind, while still powerful, is slipping fast.