Factchecking

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One example of factchecking, by Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook censors factcheckers, is provided by Power Line.  It seems that Jon Hinderaker was impertinent enough to link to his Power Line post from his Facebook account, and that post rudely suggested that there might be voter fraud in the Wisconsin establishment.

Zuckerberg’s minions didn’t like that, so they had USA Today “fact check” the post, and based on that “news” outlet’s review, they added this to Hinderaker’s Facebook link.

Here’s Hinderaker’s rebuttal—on Power Line, since Zuckerberg brooks no argument with his priests—in pertinent part (RTWT):

The explanation given for Facebook’s “fact check” is that “Wisconsin turnout [is] in line with past elections, didn’t jump 22%.” But my Facebook post said nothing about Wisconsin turnout jumping by 22%. Neither did my Power Line post, which I doubt anyone from USA Today or Facebook actually read. According to Wisconsin officials, that state had a record turnout in 2020, not one that was “in line with past elections,” so Facebook’s “fact check” is blatantly false. Also, obviously, it doesn’t even attempt to deal with anything I wrote in my Power Line post, which, among other things, explained why some observers have made exaggerated claims relating to Wisconsin’s 2020 turnout numbers. Nor does it try to explain why there is something wrong with what I wrote on Facebook, which was that “the numbers suggest” that there was major voter fraud in Wisconsin–a claim that, as far as I know, stands unrebutted.

Hinderaker is polite and says Zuckerberg’s (Hinderaker also says “Facebook,” but Zuckerberg is the MFWIC, not only in name, but with controlling share ownership) fact check is false. I have no such compunction: Zuckerberg, through his censors, is straight up lying.

Zuckerberg no longer runs a pipeline and so that operation no longer falls within the protections of the 1996 Communications Decency Act‘s Section 230. Here’s what Section 230 does in this context:

…protects social media platforms from liability for “any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected.”

It’s that “otherwise objectionable” bit that’s the problem (and so is “harassing” in this context). That’s where political speech is getting censored by Zuckerberg. From that, he’s made his operation a publisher (of opinion and, in too many cases, lies; although the latter is neither here nor there regarding Section 230), and so either his Facebook needs to be reclassified and removed from within Section 230, or Section 230 needs to be corrected to remove “otherwise objectionable” or anything like it from the liability protection clauses and the definition of “harassing” tightened a very great deal. Afterall, newspapers don’t get those protections; neither should Zuckerberg’s publisher.

Full stop.

Veteran’s Day

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I first posted this in 2011; I added to it in 2014.

Thank you for all who have, and are, serving.  And because I couldn’t have said it better, I’ll let Mike Royko, late of the Chicago Tribune, via BlackFive, say it from his 1993 column.

I just phoned six friends and asked them what they will be doing on Monday.

They all said the same thing: working.

Me, too.

There is something else we share. We are all military veterans.

And there is a third thing we have in common. We are not employees of the federal government, state government, county government, municipal government, the Postal Service, the courts, banks, or S & Ls, and we don’t teach school.

If we did, we would be among the many millions of people who will spend Monday goofing off.

Which is why it is about time Congress revised the ridiculous terms of Veterans Day as a national holiday.

The purpose of Veterans Day is to honor all veterans.

So how does this country honor them?…

…By letting the veterans, the majority of whom work in the private sector, spend the day at their jobs so they can pay taxes that permit millions of non-veterans to get paid for doing nothing.

As my friend Harry put it:

“First I went through basic training. Then infantry school. Then I got on a crowded, stinking troop ship that took 23 days to get from San Francisco to Japan. We went through a storm that had 90 percent of the guys on the ship throwing up for a week.

“Then I rode a beat-up transport plane from Japan to Korea, and it almost went down in the drink. I think the pilot was drunk.

“When I got to Korea, I was lucky. The war ended seven months after I got there, and I didn’t kill anybody and nobody killed me.

“But it was still a miserable experience. Then when my tour was over, I got on another troop ship and it took 21 stinking days to cross the Pacific.

“When I got home on leave, one of the older guys at the neighborhood bar — he was a World War II vet — told me I was a —-head because we didn’t win, we only got a tie.

“So now on Veterans Day I get up in the morning and go down to the office and work.

“You know what my nephew does? He sleeps in. That’s because he works for the state.

“And do you know what he did during the Vietnam War? He ducked the draft by getting a job teaching at an inner-city school.

“Now, is that a raw deal or what?”

Of course that’s a raw deal. So I propose that the members of Congress revise Veterans Day to provide the following:

– All veterans — and only veterans — should have the day off from work. It doesn’t matter if they were combat heroes or stateside clerk-typists.

Anybody who went through basic training and was awakened before dawn by a red-neck drill sergeant who bellowed: “Drop your whatsis and grab your socks and fall out on the road,” is entitled.

– Those veterans who wish to march in parades, make speeches or listen to speeches can do so. But for those who don’t, all local gambling laws should be suspended for the day to permit vets to gather in taverns, pull a couple of tables together and spend the day playing poker, blackjack, craps, drinking and telling lewd lies about lewd experiences with lewd women. All bar prices should be rolled back to enlisted men’s club prices, Officers can pay the going rate, the stiffs.

– All anti-smoking laws will be suspended for Veterans Day. The same hold for all misdemeanor laws pertaining to disorderly conduct, non-felonious brawling, leering, gawking and any other gross and disgusting public behavior that does not harm another individual.

– It will be a treasonable offense for any spouse or live-in girlfriend (or boyfriend, if it applies) to utter the dreaded words: “What time will you be home tonight?”

– Anyone caught posing as a veteran will be required to eat a triple portion of chipped beef on toast, with Spam on the side, and spend the day watching a chaplain present a color-slide presentation on the horrors of VD.

– Regardless of how high his office, no politician who had the opportunity to serve in the military, but didn’t, will be allowed to make a patriotic speech, appear on TV, or poke his nose out of his office for the entire day.

Any politician who defies this ban will be required to spend 12 hours wearing headphones and listening to tapes of President Clinton explaining his deferments.

Now, deal the cards and pass the tequila.

– Mike Royko

Next, because this is a day of remembrance and of honoring our surviving veterans, take another moment to visit here and take in Mark Toomey’s piece.

And follow his advice at the end.

Misdirected

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…as opposed to misdirection. Gerald Seib, in his Monday piece for The Wall Street Journal, wrote about the need to restore confidence in America’s democracy.

His need is misplaced, however. We Americans have a deep and abiding confidence in our republican form of democracy right along with our faith in voting (another of Seib’s misplaced concerns) as the means of executing our republican democracy.

this year’s election can be seen as the culmination of a two-decade period of decline in faith in the basic building blocks of democracy. That period began with the controversial Florida recount in the 2000 election, then expanded four years ago to charges of foreign interference in an election.

No, this year’s election has demonstrated our faith in our republican democracy and our voting: 150 million voters—easily a record number in his words—voted. That’s no lack of faith.

On the other hand, this year’s election can be seen as the culmination of a two-decade decline in faith in what is increasingly recognized as an intrinsically mendacious system of media, of news reporting and opinion providing. Our media have increasingly mixed news and opinion, masquerading the latter as the former while the former is increasingly unsupported by identifiable sources. Our media have increasingly provided “opinion” unsupported by fact, identifiable sources, even logic.

Our media culminated its descent (so far culminated, the descent isn’t slowing) with its open spiking of stories detrimental to Progressive-Democrats like Joe Biden or favorable to Republicans like Donald Trump. That culmination includes printing outright lies, for instance about what Trump said about our soldiers, while openly refusing to retract their stories when those lies, for instance about what Trump said about our soldiers, are disproven.

And this:

Now President Trump and his allies head to court with charges of widespread vote fraud, charges so far unsubstantiated, raising doubts about the integrity of voting in states across the map.

Leave aside the fact that no one is going to prosecute a fraud case—or a widespread error case, or a case involving State Executive Branch officials violating State Election laws, even if for the Very Best of reasons—in the press. Such cases will be prosecuted in court, and that includes providing evidence to support the allegations.

No, contrary to Seib’s assertion, what Trump and his allies are doing is seeking to preserve confidence in the integrity of voting by holding to account the personnel responsible for overseeing and protecting the several voting systems. Personnel who, by coincidence, have created doubt through their mishandling of their responsibilities primarily in Progressive-Democrat-controlled jurisdictions.

National Healing

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It has nothing to do with the Progressive-Democratic Party. And that includes Party’s head, Joe Biden.

Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin, who tweeted:  ”Any R now promoting rejection of an election or calling to not to follow the will of voters or making baseless allegations of fraud should never serve in office, join a corporate board, find a faculty position or be accepted into ‘polite’ society. We have a list.”

And this from Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes (D, NY):

Is anyone archiving these Trump sycophants for when they try to downplay or deny their complicity in the future? I foresee decent probability of many deleted Tweets, writings, photos in the future

Enemies lists aren’t consistent with healing, or even a desire to heal.

Biden’s slurs against blacks—”superpredators” and if they don’t support him, “they ain’t black”—his not wanting his kids growing up in “mixed” neighborhoods; his open lies about Trump’s attitude toward our soldiers, repeating a magazine’s debunked smears; and his refusal to condemn BLM or antifa along with his claim that 15% of Americans are “just no good:” it’s beyond the pale to expect such a bigot to be connected in any way with healing.