The Fix For Politics

The fix for politics is really pretty simple:

The Republican Party needs to STOP exploiting the gullible

by lying about fact-checking sites that expose them as the scoundrels they are.

It’s very hard to talk to far-right cultists because they have drunk the GOP kool-aid that feeds them the nonsense that legitimate fact-checking sites are all part of some Deep State Conspiracy to keep the more intelligent and curious among us “deluded.”

Just for the record, there are legitimate fact-checking sites that teachers let students know about when they’re writing papers that will be graded for the integrity of the information within.

Web Literacy has published them.

Here they are:

5 FACT-CHECKING SITES

SOME REPUTABLE FACT-CHECKING ORGANIZATIONS

The following organizations are generally regarded as reputable fact-checking organizations focused on U.S. national news:

Politifact
Factcheck.org
Washington Post Fact Checker
Snopes
Truth be Told
NPR Fact-Check
Lie Detector (Univision, Spanish language)
Hoax Slayer

Respected specialty sites cover niche areas such as climate or celebrities. Here are a few examples:

There are many fact-checking sites outside the U.S. Here is a small sample:

FactsCan(Canada)
TrudeauMetre(Canada)
El Polígrafo (Mexico)
The Hound (Mexico)
Guardian Reality Check (UK)
BBC Reality Check (UK)
Channel 4 Fact Check (UK)
Full Fact (UK)

Whenever I see far-right (or, less frequently, far-left) propaganda (lies, misinformation, disinformation) that I know is false and misleading on a friend’s Facebook page, I usually point them to the source that debunks the information and then attach the link to the Web Literacy page so they can start fact-checking memes and other so-called “news” that they see and want to share before they make damned fools of themselves and their Facebook friends by sharing them willy-nilly.

Sadly, in many cases, instead of getting a “sorry, thanks for the correction” (which I usually get from lefties) I get, “I don’t tell you what to put on your page, so don’t tell me what to put on mine” which pretty much tells me all I want to know about the person in question. They don’t care that they’re spreading lies as long as it fits their narrative of the “libtards” and “Demon-crats” and their heroes.

They didn’t pull this attitude out of their asses. These are, for the most part, otherwise lovely people. What they are, without realizing it, is deliberately deluded by Faux Noise, Taliban-like evangelical zealots (whose Jesus looks and acts nothing like the one in the Bible based on what they tell their flocks about the alien, the neighbors of color, the marginalized and the outcast), and GOP scoundrels/operatives who prey on their gullibility and stoke their fears about the “dangerous” left even as they herd them toward embracing a fascist future with people like Trump, Pence, McConnell and hundreds of far-right judges in control.

It is the people who won’t consult sources outside of their cult-like bubble who are voting against their own best interests without even knowing it. And by the time they figure out they’ve been had, it will be too late for them to do anything about it. They’ll find themselves in a place resembling Nazi Germany where no one is safe because everyone is suspect except those in charge at the top, the folks who want to do away with the “undesirables” in their midst.

This is a supremely perilous time for the United States. Our Constitution is being trampled on by dictatorial tyrants who have an agenda no American should be supporting. We fought a world war to defeat fascism. It looks, now, like we only beat it back for few generations because here it is on our doorstep again. (The Vox piece linked here was written in 2018. Since then, Trump has floated the possibility of cancelling the November election, something that the writer said, at the time, wasn’t on Trump’s agenda.) For those of you who want to know about Vox’s Media Bias rating, you can find it at https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/vox/ (and thanks for your due diligence!). You can also find every other so-called “news source” Media Bias rating at https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/(news source you want to review).

It’s time for everyone to wake up and smell the coffee. Every vote will count in November. If we’re going to sidestep the threat that faces us now with Trump and his minions in power, the truly awake and alert and sensible among us need to vote in unprecedented numbers.

The bastards will win if we don’t and we’re perilously close to being unable to do anything about it now. If they get in again, all bets are off that we will ever be able to redeem this country for its people again. It will become a fascist dictatorship and only a World War engaged by other nations will be able to liberate us following a helluva lot of carnage…