Sometimes life happens quickly. Such was the case this week for Glenn Kessler, the so-called “fact checker” for Jeff Bezos’ publication, The Washington Post. Kessler was himself fact-checked inadvertently by the U.S. Department of Justice. However, this reporter who has spent his entire career seeking out the truth and correcting other people was unwilling to admit his mistake.
Kessler’s full-time job is to perform public relations work for the Biden regime by often issuing fake “fact checks” of conservatives when they make points that run counter to the regime’s narrative. More often than not, these fact checks require some serious spinning, or even inventing of “facts,” in order to find objectionable grounds.
The incident that led Kessler to be fact checked actually started in March last year when Senator Tom Cotton pointed out that COVID-19 relief checks would be given to prisoners. The senator spoke out on March 6, 2021. tweeted:
Just today, Senate Democrats voted to grant stimulus checks to criminals currently in prison. They haven’t lost their jobs, they aren’t worried about paying rent or buying groceries. Another example of the unrelated spending in the Democrats’ partisan slush fund.
He followed up with another later in the afternoon tweet:
Dylann Roof killed nine people. He’s on federal death row. He’ll be getting a $1,400 stimulus check as part of the Democrats’ ‘COVID relief’ bill.
This was a reference to an amendment offered by Sens. Cotton, Cruz and Cassidy wanted to prevent prisoner checks. The amendment was blocked by Democrats.
The left is not good looking if it is caught sending taxpayer money to COVID-19 prisoners, including mass-murderers. It’s a bit of what we’d call a “public relations problem.” Well, public relations problems call for public relations professionals.
Enter Glenn Kessler.
The wielder of Pinocchios himself decided that of all things deserving of a fact check, Cotton’s comments reigned supreme. Here is Kessler’s two-Pinocchio verdict:
Cotton and Barrasso assert that Democrats are actively trying give stimulus checks to undocumented immigrants as well as murderers. Both Barrasso and Cotton voted against previous stimulus bills that did narrower criteria.
Kessler does several things here. First, he adds the word “actively” where it never appeared before in an attempt to absolve Democrats for their vote having an unintended or unforeseen consequence. This is patently false as they just voted down an amend that would have specifically prevented this from happening. So even the straw man insertion of “actively” doesn’t apply.
Kessler also claims that Kessler voted for the same thing as in a previous bill. This is also patently false as the senator had thoroughly investigated it. explained. The previous iteration of COVID-19 stimulus checks only went to prisoners after a liberal judge mandated that they did, over the government’s objection. This straw man also doesn’t apply.
Kessler does these two things for one reason: He wants to draw attention away from the real issue at hand—that Democrats intentionally blocked an amendment that would have prevented COVID-19 relief checks from going to prisoners. These tricks took Kessler’s fake fact-checking to a level that Politifact would not have done. rated Cotton’s comment as “mostly true.” It appears that while most fact checkers are shameless, some are more shameless than others.
Kessler would be proven right in dramatic fashion. Jan. 5 court filingAccording to the Department of Justice, Dzhokhar Tarnaev, a Boston Marathon Bomber who was imprisoned for allegedly attempting to bomb the city, received a $1400 COVID-19 relief payment. Kessler was updated by a spokesperson for Cotton.
Journalistic ethics would require a complete retraction at this point. Honesty and honor would require an explanation. Kessler, however, did what liberal fact-checkers know best: obfuscate to mislead for political reasons. This time, he would not use his public relations platform to defend the regime narrative but to defend himself.
Kessler announced that he would only downgrade the rating of Cotton’s statement from two Pinocchios to one. His reasoning:
Cotton received the Two Pinocchio rating primarily due to his lack of context. He claimed that this problem was due to something Democrats did when he had previously voted to allow checks to be issued for prisoners. He also stated that he was going to use this debate to fund his campaign ads.
His reasons for downgrading his rating are the exact same reasons he gave to award two Pinocchios. If you are looking to find consistency, reasoning or logic with extensive fact checks, then this is the right place.
This sequence of events proved to be quite a few: embarrassing for Kessler and completely predictable for the liberal fact-checker industry.
It is also a terrific encapsulation of why Americans shouldn’t trust left-wing regime public relations professionals as arbiters of truth. They exist to serve a function, and that’s to defend leftist interests. Sometimes, it’s nuanced, sneaky, and spun so much that it’s hard to keep up. Other times, it’s just pushing the envelope so far that they get caught red-handed. This is exactly what happened.
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