There was a channel on YouTube called “Cinema Sins” (maybe there still is) which would go through recent movies, nit-picking over every continuity error and anachronism and just stuff they didn’t like. It became a parody of itself, though, because the creators were locked into the paradigm of finding as many errors as possible — their entire schtick was based on tallying up huge numbers of sins to the point that they had to start inventing them. Shaun dissected them thoroughly. That ‘sin counter’ tally on their videos had to keep going up, you know!
The latest sport on Bluesky is doing a Shaun to the newspaper fact-checkers who are struggling so hard to justify their existence by finding something, anything to criticize about speeches at the Democratic National Convention. In particular, I see a lot of piling on of the odious Glenn Kessler. The poor man takes his job very seriously. He’s motivated to make sure he gets column inches by finding something to write about, which would be a worthy occupation, except that he keeps calling into question statements that aren’t literal quotes. “Summarizing” or “condensing” the overall message of a political group is a sin!
For instance, one speech highlights the family policy of the Republican party.
“Page 451 says the only legitimate family is a married mother and father where only the father works.”
— Colorado Gov. Jared Polis
It’s a matter of interpretation. Polis was one of several speakers during the convention who have highlighted passages in a Heritage Foundation report called “Mandate for Leadership,” a 922-page catalogue of conservative proposals that is popularly known as Project 2025.
But the report’s Page 451 does not use the words that Polis suggested he was quoting, nor does it say that mothers should not work. On that page is a proposal for the Department of Health and Human Services to promote “stable and flourishing married families.”
But here’s what page 451 says. It’s true, Polis was not accurately quoting the literal words of Project 2025.
Goal #3: Promoting Stable and Flourishing Married Families. Families comprised of a married mother, father, and their children are the foundation of a well-ordered nation and healthy society. Unfortunately, family policies and programs under President Biden’s HHS are fraught with agenda items focusing on “LGBTQ+ equity,” subsidizing single-motherhood, disincentivizing work, and penalizing marriage. These policies should be repealed and replaced by policies that support the formation of stable, married, nuclear families. Working fathers are essential to the well-being and development of their children, but the United States is experiencing a crisis of fatherlessness that is ruining our children’s futures. In the overwhelming number of cases, fathers insulate children from physical and sexual abuse, financial difficulty or poverty, incarceration, teen pregnancy, poor educational outcomes, high school failure, and a host of behavioral and psychological problems. By contrast, homes with non-related “boyfriends” present are among the most dangerous place for a child to be. HHS should prioritize married father engagement in its messaging, health, and welfare policies.
In the context of current and emerging reproductive technologies, HHS policies should never place the desires of adults over the right of children to be raised by the biological fathers and mothers who conceive them. In cases involving biological parents who are found by a court to be unfit because of abuse or neglect, the process of adoption should be speedy, certain, and supported generously by HHS
It’s only hinting at their plans with explicit opposition to LGBT+ equity, the nuclear family, and the importance of working fathers. We also have all the other things Republicans have said about their desire to return to a stereotyped version of 1950. Good work, Glenn.
Most irritating is this complaint about Tim Walz characterizing a well-known Republican policy.
“They’ll repeal the Affordable Care Act. They’ll gut Social Security and Medicare, and they will ban abortion across this country with or without Congress.”
— Vice-presidential nominee Tim Walz
The problem?
This is speculative. Trump has insisted he will not touch Social Security or Medicare — and he largely kept to that pledge during his presidency.
He also said he wouldn’t touch Roe v. Wade, as did several nominees to the Supreme Court. Yet somehow, it got “touched” and touched hard. Does Kessler assume that Republicans never lie? Programs like Social Security and Medicare and abortion are popular, so politicians avoid being direct in their plans, because that would make them lose. Glenn Kessler plays the Republican game of pretending circumlocutions are effective at hiding their intent.
As for abortion, Trump has said the Supreme Court sent the matter to the states and that each state can set its own policies. But many conservative allies are eager to restrict abortion rights even further, perhaps using old laws on the books (such as the Comstock Act of 1873) in new and aggressive ways. Walz hinted at that by saying Trump would act “with or without Congress.”
Go back to that Project 2025 document Kessler just cited as evidence that, oh no, the Republicans aren’t actually interested in restoring the Patriarchy. Search for the word “abortion”.
There are 199 mentions.
You’ll have no problem finding quotes to substantiate Walz’s wild assertion.
That’s enough. Nitpicking the plain sense of Republicans, or the slimy evasions of certain fact-checkers, has already bored me and is an endless sinkhole of evasions and lies.
None of that is true.
In a lot of cases, the father is the one doing the physical and sexual abuse.
In a lot of two parent families, the father does indeed play a positive role. I grew up in a family like that myself as did many of my cohort.
In other cases, the father was a huge problem whose only positive contribution to the family was either leaving or getting kicked out by divorce.
Project 2025 is based on lies, delusions, and fantasies.
“Trump has insisted he will not touch Social Security or Medicare — and he largely kept to that pledge during his presidency.”
He touched the pledge in a small way, so that negates the “will not touch” part.
I can nitpick, too.
Enough Republicans are on record calling for cuts to Social Security and Medicare and wanting a national abortion ban to tar the entire party with it, including an unfit and unqualified candidate for president with a track record of appointing people to head government agencies that actually oppose the central mission of those agencies. And he’s promised to be worse the second time around, blatantly making it all about fealty to him. I could definitely see him cutting Social Security and Medicare to get his cheers from rich jerks and idiots who don’t know what’s good for them or the country. Or maybe doing it for a payout from said jerks.
I could also see him ripping off the U.S. Treasury for a trillion dollars, while a third of the country responds “what a smart businessman! He took those government clowns to the cleaners!”
As for Cinema Sins, they dinged the first five Harry Potter movies for “Hermione not old enough to be hot yet.” It’s just schtick.
Well, first there’s “gut” versus outright kill and some are on record to kill these vestiges of “socialism” in our country. However, short of kill, they have already gutted Social Security in favor of IRAs, 401ks, 503bs, RSUs and discounted employee stock options. They have gutted Medicare in favor of job provided health insurance, or private health insurance assuming you can afford it. In other words, take the money that would go into a public, non-profit safety net and put it into the corporations invest it to making their execs and preferred share holders super rich…so rich that they can buy politicians and judges to further gut these programs.
On a somewhat side note: a news article in Scientific American this morning is titled, Wealthier Members of Congress Have Family Links to Slavery: U.S. Senators and Representatives whose family had a history of enslaving others have greater present-day wealth.
What a surprise…right?
Kessler should pursue a career in the little league what with all the softballs he’s throwing to the right.
Obama made a joke strongly implying that Trump has a small penis. In fact, Trump has gone on record to say that he has “no problem” with the size of his hands “– or anything else,” so as a credentialed fact chucker I have to award Obama five Pinocchios. I can haz dinner invitation now?
I still remember Glenn Kessler for being the reason why I unsubscribed WaPo because of this “fact checking” gem of a 10-yr old getting an abortion. (Un)surprisingly it’s still on WaPo even the fact had been corroborated by an arrest and there hasn’t been an apology
@AstrySolo
Over 60 years ago my father performed the delivery for a 12 year-old girl. Given the trend toward earlier menarche and the unlikelihood that a random small town doctor encountered the most extreme case of his generation, I think a ten-year-old needing an abortion is not even surprising.
My feeling is that basically all legacy media is in the tank for Trump at this point. Not because they are outright endorsing him, but because they are bending over backwards to present him and the republicans in general as “normal” even if they have to basically lie and create fantasies to do it. I don’t know if it really is the case that it’s a phone call to the editors from the owners, or if it’s just the cult like “both sides” ideology of legacy journalism, but the effect is basically the same. Considering the insanely rightwing tack of the nytimes, for example, on everything from trans rights to the Gaza genocide, I don’t know what else to think.
NYT flipped the 2016 election with its October surprise buttery males. I already disliked them for their pro-Iraq-war propaganda, it was nothing new for them to support the stupidest idiots in politics even back ieight years ago.
WaPo I don’t recall finding quite as distasteful, but I was never as much a reader of their rag.