Category: Because It’s True

Posted on

This Sums it Up Perfectly

From Infidel753:

Different people have different reasons for writing a blog. In my case, there are several. I have ideas which I hope may be of interest to some people. Although I don’t engage in debates with ideological opponents, I occasionally think of arguments which I post here because I hope they may be useful to those who do choose to engage in such debates. In some cases I run across information or ideas from others which I think are of value and should be given as much visibility as possible. In many cases I post things simply in the hope of attracting the attention of other people who have similar interests or aesthetic tastes. And on a certain level, I just write because I like doing it. I’m perfectly aware that some people may find my posts uninteresting or distasteful, and that’s fine. They don’t have to read the blog.

However, I don’t like arguing and bickering with people. This has nothing to do with whether or not engaging in debate is objectively a worthwhile form of activity. It may very well be; it probably is. But I, personally, simply don’t like it; and as with the TV soap operas, I don’t see any negative consequences likely to follow from not doing it, so I don’t do it.

Aside from that, a blog doesn’t have the same function as a discussion forum. I am not trying to run the latter, and I’m not obligated to provide a platform for views I find offensive or abhorrent. This has nothing to do with censorship. Anybody who wants to say something I choose not to allow in the comments here is free to start their own blog and say it there; and I neither can, nor would want to, stop them. As I’ve said before, freedom of expression gives you the right to put an opinionated bumper sticker on your car. It does not give you the right to put the same bumper sticker on my car. And I have no obligation to engage in verbal squabbles with whoever feels some entitlement to pick a fight over something I said that they don’t like.

Posted on

Eight Seconds of Pure, Unadulterated Truth

Much has been said about Fox News’ propensity for fallacies over the years, but nobody has nailed it quite so simply and perfectly as CNN’s Jim Acosta.

During a broadcast on Saturday, Acosta dispensed with all niceties and just called Fox News “the bullsh*t factory.”

You can see the moment here:

The internet is lauding him as a hero for finally saying what so many have been thinking.

Acosta made the comments while reporting on Republicans’ most recent obsession, a now retracted New York Post story which claimed, erroneously, migrant children detained at the southern border were all given copies of Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris’ children’s book, Superheroes Are Everywhere.

In discussing the way the right has turned the story into its controversy du jour, Acosta pulled no punches.

“This [story] was USDA Grade A bullsh*t and the reporter who wrote the story resigned claiming she was forced to make it up. But the damage was done, pumped out over the airwaves at the bullsh*t factory also known as Fox News.”

Acosta’s blunt appraisal of the controversy is pretty hard to argue with.

The New York Post story claimed Harris’ 2019 book was included in all migrant children’s welcome packets upon arrival at the border—the truly damning implication being that taxpayer dollars were spent to purchase the copies of the Vice President’s book.

The claim was false and easily disproven.

In reality, one single copy of the book, donated by a private individual, was distributed. After a furor erupted online about the fallacies in the piece, the journalist who wrote it, Laura Italiano, resigned in protest, calling the piece her “breaking point” and admitting she did not “push back hard enough against” it when she was “forced” to write it.

But as with so many other fake controversies, conspiracy theories and false accusations against Democrats and those on the left, Fox News made little effort to set the record straight, leading to Acosta’s rebuke.

On Twitter a new nickname for Fox News was born.

In a subsequent broadcast, Fox News did admit the story was “not accurate.”

But they continued raising questions about the book itself and speculating private individuals were donating Harris’ book instead of more worthy items or supplies.