Snopes Rules That Irrelevant Cher Did Not Deliver a Crushing Retort To Karoline Leavitt For Calling Her Irrelevant

Slow day at Snopes, mayhap?

Such worthies as “The View’s” fake republican Ana Navarro spread a story about how Trump paid liar Karoline Leavitt referred to ancient ex-pop star, ex-actress Cher as “irrelevant” only to be slapped down by Sonny Bono’s muse thusly:

Well, snap! Take that, fascist bitch!

The story went viral on social media, with other celebrities celebrating Cher’s comeback, at least of a verbal nature. But it didn’t happen. Snopes—not that the site is trustworthy eitherdetermined the fake quotes from both Leavitt and Cher originated in an AI-authored article appearing on a website indicating that its owners resided in Vietnam.

So desperate are the Trump Deranged for moral victories that they must stoop to cheering on fake triumphs by antediluvian woke warriors nobody under the age of 45 is likely to remember. For Cher is irrelevant, and has been for more than two decadee. Leavitt wouldn’t bother to call her irrelevant because she is irrelevant, just as the fake exchange would be irrelevant even if it occurred. This means that Snopes declaring the tale false is also irrelevant.

As is this post, come to think of it…

Apparently a washed-up star can be considered relevant if she is believed to be sufficiently opposed to the President and his supporters. Once again, as with Nicki Minaj, I must ask, “Who cares what Cher thinks about Karoline Leavitt?”

I view this episode worthy of an Ethics Alarms Kaufmann.A Kaufman” is applied to matters of controversy so inconsequential as to be unworthy of attention or indignation. George S. Kaufman,  celebrated wit and playwright, was on a TV panel show when singer Eddie Fisher ( father of Carrie) asked advice from the panel because desirable women were refusing to date him because of his youth. Kaufman replied,

“Mr. Fisher, on Mount Wilson there is a telescope that can magnify the most distant stars to twenty-four times the magnification of any previous telescope. This remarkable instrument was unsurpassed in the world of astronomy until the development and construction of the Mount Palomar telescope.  The Mount Palomar telescope is an even more remarkable instrument of magnification. Owing to advances and improvements in optical technology, it is capable of magnifying the stars to four times the magnification and resolution of the Mount Wilson telescope. Mr. Fisher, if you could somehow put the Mount Wilson telescope inside the Mount Palomar telescope, you still wouldn’t be able to see my interest in your problem.”

For Eddie Fishers problem, substitute what Cher might say after Karoline Leavitt called her irrelevant. Even in her prime, Cher’s political views should have carried no more weight than the average Starbuck’s barista. Now, they are not even worthy of a Snopes factcheck.

Ethics Dunce (Again): Snopes (Again), And A Related Mystery

Snopes, the once-trendy and amusing “Urban Myths” website that morphed quite a while ago into an almost comical Democratic party shill, may have hit peak Poe’s Law status (that’s PPL for short, like in the Barbra Streisand song) this time. I last moved these hacks out of my Julie Principle corner in June after somebody made the executive decision that the Axis site needed more ammunition when someone accused their political factchecks of partisan hackery. That month Snopes decided to point out that “No, Trump Did Not Call Neo-Nazis and White Supremacists ‘Very Fine People” after ignoring this Big Lie used repeatedly by Democrats for seven long years.

Snopes needn’t have bothered if it was going to stoop to new depths of outrageous bias as it did in a post last week. Climbing on the disgraceful bandwagon of the Trump Deranged who called Elon Musk’s awkward arm gesture as he signified that his “heart went out” to his fans a “Nazi salute,” it gave us “No, These Politicians Did Not Make the Same Gesture as Elon Musk.” A short summary of its intended message: “Apologists for Trump acolyte Musk who found photos of Democrats who also appeared to make a Nazi Salute in photos taken out of context are passing along misinformation, because the Democrats (Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris) are not Nazis, but Elon Musk, because he supports Donald Trump, might be.”

The post could be a Babylon Bee satire on Snopes (which has “factchecked” some of its satire). In truth, Musk’s gesture was exactly like the non-Nazi salutes of the Democrats Snopes always rushes to defend, because he also wasn’t giving a Nazi salute, as any non-Musk-hating, non-Trump Deranged, rational human being with a semi-functioning brain should be able to figure out all by themselves.

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Wait—Why Is Snopes Choosing Now to Factcheck a 2017 Axis Big Lie That Has Been Used Against Donald Trump for 7 Years?

Any theories?

Two day’s ago, Snopes, the thoroughly disgraced and discredited fact-checking site that routinely covers for Democrats and progressives while spinning to attack conservatives and Republicans, posted a factcheck headlined, “No, Trump Did Not Call Neo-Nazis and White Supremacists ‘Very Fine People.'”

I’ve written several posts about this persistent lie; it was in the original draft (in 2019) of the “The Big Lies Of The ‘Resistance’: A Directory” under Big Lie #4: “Trump Is A Racist/White Supremacist.” Before that, Ethics Alarms had posted in 2017 repeatedly about the Axis’s distortion of the Charlottesville riot; it was so long ago that I wasn’t even calling the “resistance”/Democrats/MSM propaganda trio “The Axis of Unethical Conduct”yet.

It would have been helpful if Snopes had weighed in then, but that would have undermined the Trump-smearing efforts of its supporters and allies. (Others have debunked this smear against Trump in the interim, such as CNN’s Jake Tapper. Joe Biden, for one, never stopped using it.)

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It’s Good to Know That We Can Depend on Good Ol’ Snopes For Hilarious Pro-Democrat Spin in the Coming Months…

My friend Tom left for home today after keeping me sane and helping me cope in the week since Grace died. Now I’ve awakened to an quiet and empty house, more ugly tasks and thoughts to face during the day, and a big confused and needy dog. But I also woke up to Snopes, bless ’em, showing all the shameless depths its fake “fact checking” services will go to try to cover up for Democrats as the election approaches, and it genuinely made me laugh.

You never know where support will come from in such difficult times.

In this post yesterday, Ethics Alarms made the easy call that a high VA official sending out a memo telling its hospitals to remove the iconic Times Square V-J-Day kissing photo demonstrated the warped values and priorities of Joe Biden’s Woke is Everything administration. The uproar over her dumb and dumber memo was such that VA Secretary Denis McDonough immediately stepped in and rescinded it (and you just know he didn’t want to). This was legitimate news and illustrative of a serious problem as well as the cultural stakes at issue in November, but the memo went out to the Axis of Unethical Conduct —“the resistance,” Democrats and the mainstream media, now allied to defeat the Republicans and Trump by any means necessary—that this is just another “Republicans pounce” story if it is anything at all. MSNBC ignored it. CNN pretended it didn’t happen. (Fox News did cover the story, which proves it is just a shill for the GOP, of course: if you know about what the VA did, see, you’re just a Fox News zombie…). The New York Times: “Memo? What memo?” Of the Usual Suspects when the news media is ordered to do a clean-up on Aisle Woke, only The Hill broke the embargo.

Aside: Doesn’t this phenomenon bother you? Shouldn’t it bother everybody? The way the MSM had handled the story is as ominous as the story itself. This is election interference by disinformation, and it is going on right now.)

But that wasn’t enough; the dishonest fact-checkers had to get into the act. Snopes, which Facebook used(maybe it still does) to decide what information to censor, got itself declared an Unethical Website and banned as a source here in 2016 when it spun absurdly for Hillary during the 2016 Presidential campaign. Its effort to do the same for the Biden Administration Ethics Train Wreck is, if anything, even worse:

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It’s Come To This: Snopes Spins Madly To Claim the President Doesn’t Look Ridiculous

Presidents through the years have frequently allowed themselves to be photographed looking silly. My favorite example, which I first saw and giggled over at about the age of 10, is the famous shot above of dour Calvin Coolidge wearing an India headdress. Author Josh King wrote in “Dukakis and the Tank” that the first rule of political photo ops is “Never put anything on your head!” Before Coolidge put on the headdress while being named an honorary chief in Deadwood, South Dakota during a campaign stop in 1927, advisors told him he would “look funny.” “Well it’s good for people to laugh, isn’t it?” Coolidge replied.

I would like to think that President Biden had the same rationale for wearing his hard-hat backwards at a bar with some union construction workers…

…but I fear that in his current deteriorating mental state he could mistake Jill for a hat.

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It’s Come To This: Desperation To Discredit Any “Facts” That Don’t Bolster Biden’s Image

Once again, we have a real story that looks like a Babylon Bee satire.

Earlier this week, viral video provoked forgettable jokes because it appeared to show something icky falling onto U.S. President Joe Biden’s shoulder as he was speaking at an event in Iowa. Naturally, the assumption was that the gunk was bird droppings, since that’s what such episodes usually entail. (It’s happened to me!) Obviously having a bird poop on you isn’t a reason for shame, but the two most partisan and unreliable U.S. “factcheckers” felt that it essential, as the loyal, progressive patriots that they are, to debunk the notion that Joe Biden had been forced to live through a recreation of the scene from “High Anxiety,” Mel Brooks’ Hitchcock spoof.

Here’s Snopes:

On April 12, 2022, a video went viral on social media that supposedly showed bird poop falling onto U.S. President Joe Biden’s shoulder as he was speaking at an event in Iowa. We examined that video and photographs from the event, and collected statements from White House officials and journalists. Here’s what we learned: What landed on Biden’s lapel was more likely a corn byproduct than bird poop. We examined photographs from Reuters, The Associated Press, and Getty Images to get a closer look at this corn/bird poop. Upon closer examination, the “bird poop” appears to be somewhat yellowish in color (like corn) and looks more like dust (i.e., from corn processing) than a liquid (i.e., bird poop).

Of course, absent chemical analysis, the Snopes conclusion is still opinion, not “fact.” But them most “factchecks” are opinions. Continue reading

Ethics Hero: Chris Rock (Plus A Word About Bald Jokes And Snopes Joining The Ethics Train Wreck) [UPDATED!]

UPDATE: 11:45, 3/30/45: Rock briefly addressed the Smith attack during his concert in Boston tonight, but said nothing substantive about it. “Soooo, how was your weekend?”, he began. After the crowd responded with a standing ovation, Rock continued: “Let me be all misty and shit.I don’t have a bunch of shit to say about that, so if you came here for that…I had written a whole show before this weekend. I’m still processing what happened, so at some point I’ll talk about that shit. It’ll be serious. It’ll be funny, but right now I’m going to tell some jokes.”

And he did.

***

Incredibly, Chris Rock has managed to stay off the Ethics Train Wreck that he unfairly was the catalyst for. Bravo, Chris. This alone makes him a worthy Ethics Hero. Consider:

  • He wisely and coolly resisted the impulse to defend himself physically when Will Smith ambushed him. It doesn’t matter that he’s a much smaller man and Smith had played Muhammad Ali. A couple months ago, Rock mused ruefully about his being bullied as a child, and regretted still letting people “walk all over him.” In the heat of the moment, he could have struck back at Smith, and might have even gained some support by doing so—and it would have wrecked the Oscars more than Smith, the fumbling, cowardly producers and the disgraceful audience in the auditorium wrecked it as it was.
  • He refused to file charges. He was well within his rights to do so, but withholding that indignity was a kindness to Smith and the Academy, neither of whom deserved it.
  • He has said nothing about the incident at all in public. Good. Literally nothing he said could do anything but make matters worse. Criticizing Smith would allow the media to promote a “feud,” obliterating the real issues. Accepting Smith’s bogus apology would be another example of letting bullies walk all over him: I’d criticize Rock for that, because it would validate Smith’s hypocrisy and attempt at an easy escape from accountability. Rocks brother says Smith has yet to contact Chris personally.
  • Chris Rock also wins the first Ethics Alarms “If” award, named for my father’s favorite poem.   So far, he has embodied the first verse to the finest detail:

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;

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Morning Ethics Warm-Up: Hoaxes, Hoaxes Everywhere…

Still thinking about today’s “factcheck” post...I have noticed that Snopes, which has endured some scandals of late and is fundraising to stay afloat, has been trying to signal objectivity by choosing some anti-conservative, anti-Republican falsehood to “factcheck.” This one was amusing: Snopes felt it had to factcheck whether this obvious hoax Christmas card was genuine…

trump-christmas-card-duty2warn

..writing, “In early December 2021, former U.S. President Donald Trump appeared in a Christmas card with a festive and quite phallic design. The image was shared heavily by left-leaning and anti-Trump social media accounts. The @duty2warn Twitter account claimed: ‘Yes, this is real.’” Of course, Snopes rules the assertion “False.” Only the most deranged of the deranged could think Trump would send out such a thing. Besides the badly photoshopped “phallic” tux, the card is dark, ugly, he’s scowling, the fonts don’t match, and the Santa sleigh drawing looks like a shower head spewing water on Trump’s head. Snopes’ partisan propaganda can’t work if nobody trusts it, so they have to try to throw in an occasional genuine factcheck that supports their usual targets now and then. Don’t be fooled.

1. On Bob Dole…Dole’s death and the (somewhat surprising) outpouring of praise from all sources for his long public service and wit made me retroactively happy and relieved that when I had a chance opportunity to pay Dole my respects, I acted. The story is here, from 2018. I will remember that encounter, and Dole, whenever the unexpected occasion arises to express personal thanks and appreciation to someone I don’t see very often. The lesson is to not hesitate, and do it.

2. There is hope…Jussie Smollett was convicted. Several commentators on Smollett’s ridiculously dishonest testimony in his fraud trial expressed worries that he would be acquitted, O.J.-style, because he is black and a celebrity. No, he was convicted, and pretty quickly too. Hate crime hoaxes are destructive, and if we are going to have special punishment for so-called hate crimes, then hate crime hoaxes should carry equivalent penalties.

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WHAT? Snopes Has Had An Unethical Culture All These Years??

What a surprise.

You know, I hate to resort to mockery, sarcasm and “I told you so” on an ethics blog, but sometimes nothing else will do. Snopes fooled me for a while: in 2010, I described the fact-checking site as doing “a superb job tracking down and clarifying web hoaxes, rumors and other misinformation.”As late as early 2016 I was relying on Scopes, and then it began to dawn on me that, like most factchecking sites (Factcheck.com is better than the rest), Snopes miraculously only saw false stories when they either impugned conservatives, or were non-political, like the three-breasted woman. 2016 saw Snopes joining the mainstream news media in shilling for Hillary Clinton and the Democrats, and the jig was up. After tracing many examples Snopes partisanship, I kissed the site off with this post, marking it as an Unethical Website Of The Month (July, 2016).

I wonder if I should contact all the furious commenters defending Snopes on that post and ask them their thoughts on today’s revelations.

A BuzzFeed News investigation found that David Mikkelson, the site’s co-founder and chief executive, authored and published dozens of articles plagiarized from other news outlets. His objective, we are told, was ” to scoop up web traffic.” Gee, you mean pandering to progressives and Democrats, doing regular hit-jobs on Republicans and issuing biased and dishonest “factchecks” with clickbait titles wasn’t enough? Fascinating.

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As An Ethics Alarms Public Service, Here’s Another Reminder Of What A Phony, Dishonest, Brain-Dead “Factcheck” Site Snopes Is

Judge websites, social media platforms and your friends who rely on this flagrantly unethical site  as authority accordingly.

For some reason there has been an outbreak of tips to Ethics Alarms involving the usual Snopes stunts, including its factchecking  the conservative satire site, the Babylon Bee. Reader Pennagain reminded me of this classic though, which nicely sums up Snopes in a concise, stinky package.

The Snopes question it supposedly examined (but didn’t) in a 2018 “FactCheck” has resurfaced because there is a new podcast about the Banks tragedy. (I can tell when Banks’ story is attracting attention again when the EA post about Wanetta Gibson starts picking up traffic.)

Here’s the rest of that “factcheck”:

Snopes pulls this bait and switch trick a lot. The answer to linkbait question ‘Was Banks wrongly convicted of rape?” is  “Yes”, and any assertion to that effect isn’t “mostly true,” it’s absolutely, 100% true. Beneath the question that heads the “inquiry,” Snopes significantly rephrases the “claim” which it then “debunks” by giving us the breathless revelations that Gibson didn’t recant ON Facebook, she contacted Banks through Facebook and then confessed in person, and that Banks “only” served 5 years and two months, not “six.” Continue reading