Who Will Fact-Check the Fact-Checkers?
Democracy dies in dumbness
Let’s be having you, Glenn Kessler of the sucktastic The Washington Post. I would cancel my subscription, but then I would be unable to cancel it again. Kessler offers a fact-check of Kamala Harris’s speech. It needs work. (Kessler, not Kamala.)
Did Trump propose to cut Medicare and Social Security? Kessler says, “mostly false.” Ha! The Medicare piece entails the perennial rubbish about whether a reduction in the cost of providing a component of health care is a benefit cut. Usually it has been Democrats that claim their proposals will cut costs. When one party finds a cost saving, the other says “You cut benefits, you swine!”
This is not actually a factual question. It depends on the incidence of a change in the rules. A measure that reduces a provider’s reimbursement for a service could potentially be passed to the patient in some form, in part. Naturally, to preserve its profits, a provider will look for ways to do this.
On Social Security, Kessler acknowledges that Trump proposed to cut Disability Insurance benefits. Now DI is part of Social Security. It’s called “OASDI,” which means “Old Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance.” That is a fucking fact.
For some reason Kessler closes, confiding in us that Trump is now saying he will not cut Social Security or Medicare. How is that relevant? Somehow out of all this, for Harris The Washington Post scores this “Three Pinochios.” The MaxSpeak score for WaPo on this is Three Dumbasses.
Will Trump’s tax cuts add $5 trillion to the national debt? Once again, this is not a question of fact. Nobody knows for certain what the effect would be. The $5 trillion number comes from the Congressional Budget Office, which is wrong all the time but cannot be accused of partisan bias. (Their biases are in the field of economics, but that’s a different story.) As “facts” go, this is as straight-forward as you can get.
Meanwhile, Kessler diverges to note the Harris Campaign’s stance on avoiding any tax increase on families receiving less than $400,000 a year. As I’ve recently written, this is a fine how-do-you-do for a liberal, but that aside, I suppose it is fair to note that Harris’s own tax policy could also add to the national debt, if you care. (I don’t.) But once again, the Post is playing political referee or judge at a college debating contest, not fact-checker.
Here Kessler closes by noting that Harris is admitting that Trump’s tax cuts benefited the middle class. Right! All of those middle class folks earning nearly $400,000 a year. Facts!
Would Trump’s proposed tariff increase raise prices on middle class families by $4,000 a year? Kessler: “This is a high estimate.” Once again, not a factual question, an empirical one that depends on an economic analysis. Kessler is correct but irrelevant, since other estimates have indeed been lower. As an effort to provide a fact, he cites a lower estimate (note the meaning of the word “estimate”) from the Peterson Institute, which is also frequently wrong and happens to be named after the plutocrat who spent decades and tons of his ill-gotten gains trying to gut Social Security.
The bigger estimate, Kessler gravely informs us, comes from “the left-leaning Center for American Progress Action Fund.” I would concede the accuracy of the identified source, but hardly the “left-leaning” bit. Facts!
Would Harris keep the U.S. military “the strongest, most lethal fighting force in the world? In this regard, the Post cautions us that Democrats would cut defense spending. Now in light of the U.S. lead in world defense spending, strictly on a factual level, a cut could still keep the U.S. defense establishment the “the strongest, most lethal fighting force in the world.” I would say it’s also the most bloated, but that’s just my opinion, man.
Did Trump “encourage [Russian President Vladimir] Putin to invade our allies, and say Russia could, quote, do whatever the hell they want.” Kessler objects that this needs context. Once again, we are not fact-checking, we are evaluating a political point.
I’m no booster of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. I am a booster of U.S. aid to Ukraine to resist Russian imperialism. No defense expert could possibly disagree that Trump would weaken the NATO alliance, which is of course the point.
It is interesting to note that the Post chooses not to delve into the context of Harris’s claims regarding Israel and Palestine. I have friends who thought it was the best we could expect. Perhaps. Nor am I questioning the animating electoral strategy. But in terms of substance with regard to the plight of Palestine, to me it was a big bowl of nothing. Another opinion.
That’s enough of The Washington Post. It is clear that the whole “fact-checking” pantomime is a pathetic exercise in demonstrating the Post is impartial in the choice between a pro-police, pro-NATO, no tax increases on those under $400K Democrat and a ranting, insane, neo-fascist ignoramus. Both sides!
Pay me the big bucks, and I would gladly write treacle like this. After all, I already do it for nothing.