Hello, CheckMate

Fact Checking the Fact Checkers Because Someone Has to Do It

Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Facts are facts.

We used to think.

In the wake of the rather (thank you!) popular PolitiFukt: How "Fact Checkers" Obliterate the Truth, it occurred to me that maybe it would be a good idea to take this further and actually start checking fact checkers on a regular basis.

Hence CheckMate -

The plan is to look at purported individual fact checks from the main arbiters of truth – PolitiFact, Snopes, Kessler at the WaPo, etc. – and see whether or not they were real actual truthful checks or just a particularly deceitful form of spin.

I won’t be using a Pinocchio or pants-related scale of truth because I have a feeling I will be encountering much, um, nuance along the way.  So the checks will be reviewed based on a number of factors including:

·         Is it just a steaming pile?

·         Is it pedantry in motion?

·         Is it spin?

·         Is it self-fulfilling?

·         Is it pure politics?

·         Is it in fact merely the opinion of a sheep wearing a wolf’s armor of “truth?”

·         Is it mostly dead?

·         Is it – amazingly enough – correct?

·         And etc.

I expect this will take a fair amount of time but I hope to review a fair number of checks each week, so please do subscribe so I can gauge interest and please do become a paid subscribe if you can.  Bonus: paid subscribers can submit fact checks for review consideration (a separate email will be provided once the subscription is activated.)

Also, I will not be fact checking stupid and engage every bit of internet batshittery there is.  That is going to be a crucial difference – only the real or potentially real that could have a very direct on the socio-political culture fact checks will be fact checkened (can’t be a real word but in this context it should be.)

And I decide that; see, I have biases but, unlike the censorship-industrial complex fact checkers, I will actually admit to them.  So there.

Anyway, I’m sure I’ve bitten off my than I can chew but let’s see how this goes.

A little bit of actual truth can’t be a bad thing…can it?

Oh, and speaking of truth – just a day or “PolitiFukt” posted, this gem came along.  I added it to the main story but I thought I’d share wit the rest of the class in case you haven’t been checking it hourly…LIKE A GOOD SUBSCRIBER WOULD DO!

Added item - PolitiFact determined the following to be false: “The WHO (World Health Organization) is developing a pandemic treaty that will remove current human rights protections, enforce surveillance and censorship and eliminate freedom of speech.”

The treaty and accords in question and currently under discussion absolutely allow for such actions to occur as they, essentially, codify the reaction to COVID as the reaction that should take every time there is a real or perceived pandemic in the future. The treaties also strongly contemplate shifting the final decision-making authority about what is a pandemic/emergency to the WHO itself.

These actual facts are crystal clear - see here: https://brownstone.org/articles/who-to-govern-the-health-of-the-world/ and here: https://brownstone.org/articles/a-primer-on-the-who-the-treaty-and-its-plans-for-pandemic-preparedness/ .

So how did PolitiFact come to the conclusion the assertion was false?

They asked the WHO.

As an example of the vulturous circle, it simply doesn’t get any clearer than that.

That one, for example, would fall under both “self-fulfilling” and “steaming pile.”

I will be rolling this new site out as the week goes on and I’m trying to figure out how to make paid subscribers to The Point get CheckMate as part of a package but I haven’t been able to do so – will contact tech support.

And I’ve left the comments open for thoughts and ideas and so you can let me know if I set up the new site or the link above incorrectly - the website is https://thecheckmate.substack.com/

Thanks much and here we go!