[Babylon Bee] U.S.‐Snopes has rolled out a helpful new feature: an opinion checker.
Alongside the site's helpful fact checks of satirical articles and debunking of urban legends, there will now be a section of the site dedicated to checking out opinions and letting you know which ones are acceptable to hold.
"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."
As soon as the feature went live, Snopes had opinion-checked dozens of opinions, including the following:
President Trump isn't as bad as Hitler
White men aren't all bad
Abortion is wrong
Pineapple does not belong on pizza
Hillary Clinton is not a good person
The Last Jedi is trash
It's OK to laugh at a joke on the internet
All of these earned a "Wrong" opinion rating. Any post expressing these opinions on social media will automatically be tagged with a "Wrong" rating from Snopes.
h/t Instapundit
[LegalInsurrection] My initial reaction to Robert Mueller’s congressional appearance was one of pity. He was a pathetic character on the stage, seemingly bewildered at times, mentally frail, and vulnerable as a witness.
What a way to end a career and to be remembered by friend and foe alike.
But emotion is not the way to assess what we saw. It’s not an overstatement to say that the Hillary-DNC-Fusion GPS-Steele operation, as embraced by influential members of the FBI and possibly intelligence services, compounded by leaks to and collusion of a willing media, came close to undermining a presidential election before and after Election Day.
In many ways the Mueller testimony confirmed our worst fears that the Mueller Investigation was the Mueller Investigation in name only, that it was run the way the pre-Mueller investigation of Trump was run ‐ by people with a political agenda to override the 2016 election result, or at least to make sure it didn’t happen again in 2020. It’s a theme we’ve covered here pretty much since the Inauguration.
Whether Robert Mueller was a mere figurehead or in control, he was a participant. So while he was a sorry figure in the congressional hearings, and his appearance did substantial damage to Democrat and media plans, the gravity of what happened should not be lessened. It almost worked.
The media, of course, was a full participant in what happened. Just when you thought the major organizations who control almost all of popular and social media couldn’t get any worse, they do. This all takes place while high tech companies put the thumb on the scale by penalizing non-liberal content.
You know where I’m going, don’t you? Dread.
After Mueller had testified for several hours, and it was clear that it was a disaster for Democrats and the media, I was asked by someone who works in the neighborhood, knows about this website, and is a big Trump supporter, how it was going. We talked about the hearings for a little while, since he was unable to watch, then he asked me: "Do you still have hope?"
That simple question somewhat set me aback.
My answer, paraphrased:
Yes, I still have hope, but it’s hard. When the weight of the media, entertainment and educational industries is so hostile to non-liberals, and when it combines with the power of the state, it’s tough. It seems overwhelming at times. It’s emotionally and physically draining. And it’s been going on for several decades. Yet I still have hope despite that overwhelming disadvantage.
It’s almost unimaginable that after this decades-long onslaught, Republicans nonetheless control the Senate and the presidency, and most state legislatures. How can that possibly be, it’s seemingly impossible. The American people are resilient, and that gives me hope.
But vigilance must be eternal, going to sleep politically even for a year or two is not an option. You cannot give an inch, or they’ll take a mile. And people need to be held accountable.
We’re doing construction at the house. The contractors we’re using told me they’ve never seen the economy this strong, that they can’t hire enough people for all the work they could get. Some of the workers blasted Rush Limbaugh on the radio. I smiled.
We can’t let the Mueller fiasco be forgotten. This was really dangerous, almost beyond imagination.
The investigators need to be investigated. The best defense is certainty of retaliation - I said at the time that Christine Blasey Ford's life needs to be turned into hell. Muller and Co hundredfold.
[Free Beacon] MSNBC analyst Richard Stengel said Thursday that "we in the media" hadn't done a good-enough job of explaining the particulars of the Russia investigation to the public in a "bite-sized way." Yes, your "failure" is surely due to our stupidity and incomprehension.
In the aftermath of former special counsel Robert Mueller's low-key testimony Wednesday on Capitol Hill, the former Obama administration diplomat said on Deadline: White House it was incumbent on the press and Democrats to put significant nuggets from the Russia probe on a "three-by-five card" and repeat it over and over for Americans to understand.
MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace, who was among the many members of the media critical of Mueller's performance on Capitol Hill, said nevertheless Mueller had "destroyed" Trump's credibility. In her reading, Mueller had laid bare that Trump would be charged with a crime if he were not president. Mueller said the investigation did not exonerate Trump on obstruction of justice but didn't come to a conclusion as to whether he committed a crime.
Many Democrats had hoped Mueller would bring new life to his probe and perhaps spur more members, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.), to seek impeachment. However, he contained his answers to the report's information and didn't provide showy sound bites.
#6
I guess we agree on one thing: They're lousy journalists.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
07/26/2019 11:36 Comments ||
Top||
#7
Old Soviet Era Joke: “There is no truth in news and no news in truth” (Russian Izvestia and Pravda adage). Can you sell a gold-plated dog turd just because it is shy?
#8
I don't think most in the media ever read the report. They just know what they talked about in the break room version with all the lies and wishful thinking that entails.
#9
MSNBC analyst Richard Stengel said Thursday that "we in the media" hadn't done a good-enough job of explaining the particulars of the Russia investigation to the public in a "bite-sized way."
If all of you suck that bad at your job, you should just quit en masse, right?
#12
The media didn't fail, it never had ANY intention of feeding the public the actual truth. They don't want the public to understand because if they did, reporters and democrats would be known as Lamppost fruit.
[TCM] When it comes to preparing your children for the world, there’s nothing better than to share the essential truths of the world.
One said truth is about Saul Alinsky and some of his closest followers: the Clintons and Obamas.
Most Americans have never heard of Saul Alinsky. Yet his shadow darkens our country as famous democrats Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama both worship at the altar of Alinskyism.
Continued on Page 49
[FIVETHIRTYEIGHT] From suggesting on his first day as a presidential candidate back in 2015 that Mexico was intentionally sending "rapists" to America to calling last week for several liberal congresswomen of color to "go back" to their countries, President Trump has repeatedly used racial and at times racist language over the last four years. And in doing so he has tapped into what some scholars describe as white identity politics, attracting support from those wary of the growing population of Americans who are not white or Christian, as well as those who have negative views about groups of people like black people and Moslems.
These moves have created an active debate among political observers about whether Trump is acting on his sincere beliefs, employing a political strategy or pursuing some combination of the two. It’s hard to know Trump’s motives (and likely it is some combo). But assuming that Trump’s rhetoric and policy approach on issues of race, religion, nationality and other forms of identity are at least in part a political strategy, is it a smart one? Does the way Trump use white identity politics help him and the GOP electorally, even if he at times veers into racism that members of his own party can’t defend? And are the Democrats (usually more establishment, centrist figures) who worry the party is playing into Trump’s hands when it defends members of Congress like Rep. Ilhan Omar ...Somali-American Dem representative from Minnesota. She is apparently married to her brother and may be her own grandmaw on her mother's side... of Minnesota generally right, at least in terms of political strategy? He goes on (and on) about how racist Trump and his base are, but he doesn't address once that the Dems have openly become the anti-white party. Go to the Urban Dictionary and this is what you get:
White people
Someone who shoots up schools
Guy#1: Did you hear about that school shooting
Guy#2: It was probably the white people
#red necks#jack asses#crackers#honkies#inbred
by xlxExcelsiorxlx June 13, 2015
MTV has a show called simply White People. I'm not sure anyone still watches MTV, but the blurb sez:
What does it mean to be white? MTV's "White People" is a groundbreaking documentary on race that aims to answer that question from the viewpoint of young white people living in America today.
That would seem to define whites as the "other." The author accepts that categorization as valid, throwing in for good measure
white identity politics, attracting support from those wary of the growing population of Americans who are not white or Christian, as well as those who have negative views about groups of people like black people and Moslems
Those wary of folks who aren't white or Christian would seem to include Conservative and Orthodox Jews, Cuban-Americans of any color, Asian-Americans, and Hindus, none of whom we seem to have any problem getting along with. Having negative opinions about blacks and Moslems as a group is dismissed as blind bigotry.
I don't say racial prejudice, even though it's officially equated with bigotry, because our prejudices are based on empirical evidence, whereas bigotry is an assumption based on what the believer thinks should be. This is occasionally called "idealism." The SS were idealists, believing what they had been taught to believe. So were the Cheka and the NKVD. So were the Red Guards. So are adherents to the Islamic State. So is the IRGC.
So are the Woke. Go to the Huffington Post and have a look at the White People topic.
BLACK VOICES
White Students Wear Cornrows And Bandanas As Costumes For High School ‘Thug Day’
POLITICS
Alabama’s Abortion Bill Is Great News For White Supremacists
ENTERTAINMENT
Trevor Noah’s Hidden Oscars Joke About White People Is Sneaky Fun
OPINION
White Women: Stop Waiting For Black Women To Save You
OPINION
Powerful, Privileged White Men Will Not Win Forever
BLACK VOICES
Some White People Are Very Mad At Nike And Colin Kaepernick
...and so on and so on.
Not being Woke (I'm Dozing), and relying on our senses, most of us have a dim view of black culture, while recognizing that all people who're black don't embrace it, and that of those who do, many don't embrace it in its entirety. I won't even touch on Moslems, except to note that the same applies to adherents of The Religion of Peace. Prejudice is a thin layer of expectation based on past experience that can be overcome by observation, sometimes minimal observation.
The real world (not the other MTV show) is quite a bit more complicated than the wonderful world of the Huffington Post.
Corn rows and bandanas bring the expectation of thuggishness. So's wearing your pants so low they keep trying to fall down. Finding someone who chooses that attire who is also being polite and respectful always comes as a surprise. Seeing a security recording of them looting a 7-11 or a drug store doesn't.
Abortion can sometimes be a necessity, but it's always a tragedy, for the baby at least, usually also for the mother. I'm actually pro-abortion, but only by about 50.1 percent. I think it should be safe, legal, extremely rare, and well-regulated locally. Any aborted baby should be given a decent burial, not sold for parts.
If Trevor Noah’s Hidden Oscars Joke About White People Is Sneaky Fun, why aren't Mandy and Rastus jokes? Why can we still tell Pat and Mike jokes, or Ole and Lena jokes? Are Cisco and Pancho jokes in or out? Is all we have "Is your refrigerator running? Well, go catch it!" Or would that be ableist? Is all humor dead?
White Women: Stop Waiting For Black Women To Save You from... ummm... patriarchy. And oppression. And terrible things like that. And stuff. Because you can't trust men who share the same ancestry and culture and values as you, especially your parents and grandparents. They lie to you. Consideration of others is inconvenience of you.
Powerful, Privileged White Men Will Not Win Forever. Really. Just listen to the powerful, privileged white men telling you that. And remember to vote Democrat.
Some White People Are Very Mad At Nike And Colin Kaepernick... for not putting the Betsy Ross flag on a pair of sneakers. Personally, being an old white man on a fixed income, I wouldn't have been able to afford them. But I had no objection to them. I'd never heard of the Betsy Ross flag being appropriated by white extremists, and still haven't seen anything substantial. Until I see armed fascisti strutting down my street and beating people up, I'm not going to be concerned. The ones we've been seeing in the last few years haven't been carrying Betsy Ross flags.
Colin Kaepernick, like most of the left, seems to have an aversion to the flag. I don't go overboard in my adoration; it's not an idol. I don't need it sewn on my socks, and I didn't have it sewn on my uniform when I was in Vietnam; we didn't in those days. Neither do I disrespect it. I don't like seeing it burned for political fun, or trampled, or whatever they come up with next.
I stand and put my hand over my heart for the national anthem. It's good manners. I also stand when they play God Save the Queen in England or The Marseillaise in France, or Het Willem in the Netherlands. It's good manners. Kaepernick has none.
Jessie Owens managed to do it in 1936, but he was a man among men. Kaepernick isn't.
As long as I'm expressing my opinion (I have many. This isn't all of them): Kim Kardashian is trashy. Kanye West needs a drug test. Their children are cute. Bill de Blasio is an incompetent windbag. Ilhan Omar would be happier in Mogadishu. I'm still trying to figure why it's "Beto" O'Rourke but not "Teo" Cruz. Teo looks better with a beard, but he still needs a voice coach. Mueller sounded like he's seriously in need of a drug test. The current Pope should move to Avignon. Putin is to Russia what Trump is to the USA, only way moreso, and with polonium; if Trump was Putin, he'd have no critics, at least not anymore. The Paleostinians would be totally lost without something to "resist." I'm starting to think that Caitlyn Jenner might be homosexual, but I'm not sure in which direction. Kirsten Gillibrand is in reality no one. Ruth Bader Ginsberg looks like the kind of woman whose house kids are afraid to enter. Seattle, Portland, and the entire state of Caliphornia should be declared in a state of insurrection and occupied. Name one of the Seven Deadly Sins lefties don't glorify.
#2
It's not white people he's appealing to, it's what is left of Western Civilization and a very corrupted form of an old republic. Seems to appeal to many who are not 'white' (not to be confused with Asians who Harvard classifies as white because so many adopted the successful institutions and behaviors developed in Western Civilization).
#7
Oh, I get it: Trump increases the GOP share of the Hispanic vote from 2012 to 2016, and has increased it further in the last three years - but this can only be due to "white identity politics."
Right.
These people at so full of $hit, if you gave them an enema they could fit in a shoebox.
[Ynet] With tensions in the Gulf rising, Iran is accelerating efforts to create a second front against Israel on the Syrian side of the Golan for its proxy terror group to use when an attack on the Jewish state would best suit their interests in their conflict with the United States.
The strike Wednesday attributed to Israel in Tel Haraa in southern Syria should be seen the context of recent events that include a mysterious murder of a Druze resident of the area and an earlier strike in the same location.
Syrian media reported earlier this week of a kaboom that killed Mash'hur Zeidan, a Druze resident of the village of Hadar in southern Syria, who was a known operative of the Leb-based Hezbollah terror group. He and his son died late Sunday night near the village of Sasa, 40 kilometers south of Damascus.
It is no secret that Israel is actively attempting to foil any Hezbollah efforts of entrenchment on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights, close to the ceasefire line reached after the 1973 Yom Kippur War.
The attack on Tel Haraa early Wednesday came about six weeks after a similar attack on this region which is known to have pro-Iran ...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan, the abbreviation IRGC is a cognate form of Stürmabteilung (or SA), the term Supreme Guide is a cognate form of either Shah or Führer or maybe both, and they hate JewsZionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol... militias stationed in it.
According to the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the attack caused both fatalities and damage, and was directed at Syrian regime forces as well as foreign militias loyal to Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Terror of Aleppo ... Iran has been investing efforts in building a terror infrastructure close to the Syrian border with Israel and their forces on the ground are mostly Hezbollah operatives.
Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps is banned from setting up a presence in the area following an agreement reached with the intervention of Russia, which ensures there are no Iranian forces less than 80 kilometers from the border.
Russian military police are enforcing the agreement, which is why Qasem Soleimani, who is in charge of Iran's troop deployment in Syria, has subcontracted to Hezbollah the task of creating infrastructure in the area. This infrastructure includes observation posts and intelligence installations that would support future Iranian-inspired Hezbollah attacks on Israel.
The escalating tension in the Persian Gulf may be putting pressure on Iran to accelerate its efforts to establish a front on the Golan Heights ready for at a time beneficial to Tehran.
Tel Haraa has been used by the Syrian army for many years to observe the Israeli side of the Golan, including with the use of electronic surveillance. A Syrian military base is also located there, providing support to the Iranian-backed forces in the area.
Syria took back the base and its surroundings from rebel forces last year, with the help of the Russian military and with the understanding that only Syrian troops were allowed in.
Iranian-backed militias - including Hezbollah - were to be redeployed at least 80 kilometers away. Yet the attacks attributed to Israel, which has said it will not allow Iran to set up shop on the Syrian side of the border, continue.
According to Phillip Smyth, the Soref Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, “Hezbollah doesn’t want to have to execute an entire war on its own in southern Syria. It’s much easier to apply plausible deniability and harder to bust a Hezbollah cell if they are locals,” he told The Jerusalem Post, adding that they have taken a slightly different approach and being very pragmatic in terms of who they recruit.
Zidan, a Druze resident from the village of Hadar, is believed to have been a senior Hezbollah operative responsible for recruiting volunteers from villages near the border with Israel as part of Hezbollah’s Golan File.
Senior intelligence officers in the IDF’s Northern Command said that Hezbollah’s Golan Project began last summer following the reconquering of the Syrian Golan by regime troops. Operatives involved in the clandestine file have weaponry available from the civil war and if needed, will receive additional weaponry from Lebanon or existing arsenals kept by Hezbollah and Iran.
“Hezbollah knows that Israel is watching, so they are being much more covert than in the past,” Smyth said, adding that they are using more local forces rather than sending brigades of Lebanese fighters to the area.
Military success in Syria has also allowed Hezbollah to redeploy senior operatives and troops to the area as well as southern Lebanon. The group’s leader Hassan Nasrallah has said as much himself in a speech in mid-July.
“We are present in every area that we used to be. We are still there, but we don’t need to be there in large numbers as long as there is no practical need,” he said, adding that “if there was a need to return, all those who were there would go back.”
According to David Daoud, a research analyst on Hezbollah and Lebanon at United Against Nuclear Iran, the uptick in Israeli strikes in the area is because “there has been increased Hezbollah presence.”
In mid-March US President Donald Trump announced the formal recognition of the Golan as sovereign Israeli territory, handing Hezbollah a present for their recruitment in the area.
“Recognition of the Golan creates common ground for different factions to agree upon - the same applies to the embassy move, and the ‘deal of the century,” Daoud said, adding that “Different regional groups or axes that might not otherwise agree now have something in common.”
Smyth told The Post that while “Trump’s statement has sent some signals to Iran,” Tehran has “upped the ante because of the situation on the ground, not because of Trump’s statement. They know that their goals will outlast the Trump administration. But if it rallies the troops, they will use it. They are very pragmatic.”
While the “Iranians have been following the same program in southern Syria for years, now they're trying to secure and resecure their gains,” Smyth said. “There’s a lot more opportunity, it’s a net gain no matter how you look at it.”
The attack on Tel Haara on Wednesday was not the first.
The site has been used by the Syrian army for years to observe Israeli movement, and since the Assad regime re-took the area from rebels last summer, there have been several strikes on the site blamed on Israel.
While the base, which has electronic surveillance capabilities, was supposed to be manned solely by regime troops, pro-Iranian militias including Hezbollah are known to be stationed in it.
According to Smyth, Hezbollah and Iran “have been at the forefront of using electronic means to counter their foes, its existed for decades and it wouldn’t shock me if they were testing the waters there.”
The opportunity was there for the taking.
The retaking of the Syrian Golan by Assad also forced Israel to end Operation Good Neighbor, where Israel provided humanitarian and, according to foreign reports, military aid to rebels in the Syrian Golan.
Israel also treated thousands of Syrians who arrived at the border,both combatants and civilians. According to officials some 70% of the wounded treated by Israel were men of fighting age while the other 30% were women and children.
A year later, “times have changed,” Smyth told the Post. “Not everyone has switched over but if your stuck in Syria and you have no options...and you can’t run into Israel...you have to back the strongest horse.”
[WCNC] TEGA CAY, S.C. ‐ There is a controversy in Tega Cay over a monument dedicated to the police department.
Tuesday night, the City of Tega Cay announced they decided to remove the monument while they look for a solution that expresses support of "those who risk their lives every day."
The city originally decided to remove the word "Lord" after backlash from the community. Then, social media was buzzing with others who disagree with the city’s action.
The monument was located at the fallen officers memorial outside the police department. A police spokesman said they started getting complaints, so city leaders had a meeting and decided to remove the references.
The word "Lord" appeared three times in the monument before it was removed. However, removing the word has also caused backlash.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Free Beacon] MSNBC analyst Richard Stengel said Thursday that "we in the media" hadn't done a good-enough job of explaining the particulars of the Russia investigation to the public in a "bite-sized way."
[FIVETHIRTYEIGHT] From suggesting on his first day as a presidential candidate back in 2015 that Mexico was intentionally sending "rapists" to America to calling last week for several liberal congresswomen of color to "go back" to their countries, President Trump has repeatedly used racial and at times racist language over the last four years. And in doing so he has tapped into what some scholars describe as white identity politics, attracting support from those wary of the growing population of Americans who are not white or Christian, as well as those who have negative views about groups of people like black people and 
...Somali-
Those wary of folks who aren't white or Christian would seem to include Conservative and Orthodox Jews, Cuban-Americans of any color, Asian-Americans, and Hindus, none of whom we seem to have any problem getting along with. Having negative opinions about blacks and Moslems as a group is dismissed as blind bigotry. 
Corn rows and bandanas bring the expectation of thuggishness. So's wearing your pants so low they keep trying to fall down. Finding someone who chooses that attire who is also being polite and respectful always comes as a surprise. Seeing a security recording of them looting a 7-11 or a drug store doesn't.
Some White People Are Very Mad At Nike And Colin Kaepernick... for not putting the Betsy Ross flag on a pair of sneakers. Personally, being an old white man on a fixed income, I wouldn't have been able to afford them. But I had no objection to them. I'd never heard of the Betsy Ross flag being appropriated by white extremists, and still haven't seen anything substantial. Until I see armed fascisti strutting down my street and beating people up, I'm not going to be concerned. The ones we've been seeing in the last few years haven't been carrying Betsy Ross flags.
As long as I'm expressing my opinion (I have many. This isn't all of them): Kim Kardashian is trashy. Kanye West needs a drug test. Their children are cute. Bill de Blasio is an incompetent windbag. Ilhan Omar would be happier in Mogadishu. I'm still trying to figure why it's "Beto" O'Rourke but not "Teo" Cruz. Teo looks better with a beard, but he still needs a voice coach. Mueller sounded like he's seriously in need of a drug test. The current Pope should move to Avignon. Putin is to Russia what Trump is to the USA, only way moreso, and with polonium; if Trump was Putin, he'd have no critics, at least not anymore. The Paleostinians would be totally lost without something to "resist." I'm starting to think that Caitlyn Jenner might be homosexual, but I'm not sure in which direction. Kirsten Gillibrand is in reality no one. Ruth Bader Ginsberg looks like the kind of woman whose house kids are afraid to enter. Seattle, Portland, and the entire state of Caliphornia should be declared in a state of insurrection and occupied. Name one of the Seven Deadly Sins lefties don't glorify.
The actress wants to work on projects that are ‘inclusive’.
...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for 
