Shady “Fact Checking” Sources Snopes and Politico DEBUNKED!

We Are Change

NEW YORK (WeAreChange) —  The mainstream media is undoubtedly the biggest collective proponent of fake news, and they often rely upon highly flawed third party sources for their “fact-checking” needs. Such sources include the liberal “myth busting” website Snopes and the similarly slanted internet wasteland Politico.

And now, Facebook has essentially empowered the fake news site Snopes by roping them in as one of their third party fact checking sources to “debunk” fake news and remove such news from users News Feeds entirely.

“To combat fake news, Facebook has partnered with a shortlist of media organizations, including Snopes and ABC News, that are part of an international fact-checking network lead by Poynter, a nonprofit school for journalism located in St. Petersburg, Florida,” reports Business Insider.

This newly-formed alliance will identify stories it deems to be “fake news” and then flag the URL, ensuring the story is buried in users’ news feeds and seen by significantly less people.

Snopes, is clearly not an impartial source and this is evidenced by the type of individuals working at the organisation as well as their methodology for “debunking myths.”

As the Daily Caller reported, Snopes’ main political “fact checker,” Kim Lacapria, describes herself as “openly left-leaning” and a liberal. She has previously equated Tea Party conservatives with jihadists and called Republicans “regressive.”

So much for being impeccably non-partisan and impartial, right? Quite obviously, that’s not the case.

Peter Hassan, the author of the Daily Caller article, reported that after blogging for the Inquisitr, “Lacapria joined Snopes, where she regularly plays defense for her fellow liberals.”

Hassan detailed a number of instances that prove Lacapria is not at all impartial in her “research” and conclusions:

She wrote a “fact check” article about Jimmy Carter’s unilateral ban of Iranian nationals from entering the country that looks more like an opinion column arguing against Donald Trump’s proposed Muslim ban.

Similarly, Lacapria — in another “fact check” article — argued Hillary Clinton hadn’t included Benghazi at all in her infamous “we didn’t lose a single person in Libya” gaffe. Lacapria claimed Clinton only meant to refer to the 2011 invasion of Libya (but not the 2012 Benghazi attack) but offered little fact-based evidence to support her claim.

After the Orlando terror attack, Lacapria claimed that just because Omar Mateen was a registered Democrat with an active voter registration status didn’t mean he was actually a Democrat. Her “fact check” argued that he might “have chosen a random political affiliation when he initially registered.”

Lacapria even tried to contradict the former Facebook workers who admitted that Facebook regularly censors conservative news, dismissing the news as “rumors.”

In that “fact check” article, Lacapria argued that “Facebook Trending’s blacklisting of ‘junk topics’ was not only not a scandalous development, but to be expected following the social network’s crackdown on fake news sites.” The opinion-heavy article was mockingly titled: The Algorithm Is Gonna Get You.

Lacapria again played defense for Clinton in a fact check article when she claimed: “Outrage over an expensive Armani jacket worn by Hillary Clinton was peppered with inaccurate details.”

One of the “inaccurate details” cited by Lacapria was that, “The cost of men’s suits worn by fellow politicians didn’t appear in the article for contrast.” She also argued the speech Clinton gave while wearing the $12,495 jacket, which discussed “raising wages and reducing inequality,” wasn’t actually about income inequality.

Snopes itself is run by a left-wing couple based out of California who have no background whatsoever in professional and ethical research. These are the people who will be deciding what’s “fake news” and what isn’t. Who gave this couple the right to be judge, jury and executioner over what is fake news and what isn’t?

In August of last year, the couple, Barbara and David Mikkelson, were arrested by police after “an unrelated investigation of a Snopes.com editor lead police onto a paper trail of corruption, bribery, and fraud at the very heart of the fact-checking organization.”

“Evidence obtained by police has revealed that Snopes.com, which markets itself as “the definitive Internet reference source for urban legends, folklore, myths, rumors, and misinformation,” has a history of accepting money and favors from left-leaning and pro-Islamic political groups and individuals for helping them to advance their cause by rigging public discourse with selective fact-finding and deliberate manipulation of public opinion,” Dr Rick Swier, a conservative commentator noted.

As for Politico, they’re were one of the top peddlers of the fake news narrative that Donald Trump could absolutely not win the U.S. election on November 8th.

“The irony is that it was mainstream outlets that have had their predictions proven chronically wrong for the last 18 months—not us or Breitbart—and no site has been more guilty than Politico. The preferred source of political news for Beltway operatives, for this entire cycle, Politico was not only wrong about most everything, it also did everything possible to denigrate Donald Trump, who they constantly assured us, could never win anyway,” Amren.com reports

The alternative media site lists the fake news stories that Politico peddled about Trump:

A lot of their stories came from “insiders”—which underlined Politico’s status as privileged reporters, constantly rubbing shoulders with important “insiders.” A typical headline would be, “Insiders: Trump Administration Will Be a Disaster.” Somehow, the insiders were almost always anonymous.

Here are some of Politico’s greatest hits.

2015:

June 7th: The man to beat in Iowa: Scott Walker

June 16th: The 10 best lines from Donald Trump’s announcement speech

The opening two sentences were typically dismissive:

“Donald Trump launched his quixotic presidential bid Tuesday in a speech at his Trump Tower office building in Manhattan.

The discursive, pugnacious announcement was one of the more bizarre spectacles of the 2016 political season thus far — and one of the most entertaining.”

July 10th: Insiders say Scott Walker is dominant in Iowa

July 14th: The power players behind Scott Walker’s campaign

July 24th: Insiders: Trump has peaked

August 7th: GOP insiders: Trump is biggest loser

This was about one of the Republican candidate debates, which Mr. Trump regularly dominated.

August 14th: Insiders: Trump can’t win early states

August 14th: The 199 Most Donald Trump Things Donald Trump Has Ever Said

October 2nd: 5 reasons to bet $5 on Marco Rubio

December 4th: Democratic insiders: Trump is easy prey for Clinton

December 7th: The 7 craziest things Trump has said

This was on how nuts it would be to ban Muslims.

2016:

February 6th: ‘Trump Is Falling Fast’: An Election Gambler Predicts New Hampshire

Mr. Trump won the state by almost 20 points.

February 12th: Insiders: Hard road ahead for Trump

February 14th: Insiders: Trump flopped in debate

In this debate, Mr. Trump flayed Jeb Bush. The next primary was in South Carolina, which Mr. Trump won decisively. Mr. Bush then dropped out.

February 24th: Rubio looking ahead to wins on March 15

Mr. Rubio dropped out of the race on March 15.

April 6th: Wisconsin meltdown puts Trump on track for convention fight

April 27th: Trump declares race won, but it’s not

April 29th: Insiders: Clinton would crush Trump in November

May 13th: Insiders: Trump stumbled in general election pivot

The subtitle: “Democrats aren’t worried by Hillary Clinton’s recent defeats.”

June 17th: Insiders: Trump’s Orlando response was terrible

This was after the Jihadist massacre at the Pulse nightclub. Mr. Trump won Florida in the general election.

June 17th: GOP insiders: Trump should pick Newt for vice president

Mr. Gingrich, who attacked Mitt Romney for being too anti-immigrant in 2012, refused to criticize affirmative action while he was speaker in 1990s, and won Wilmot Robertson’s title of “Majority Renegade of the Year” as far back as 1986. He was obviously a terrible choice.

July 1st: Insiders: Clinton dominates Trump on the ground

August 4th: Trump vs. the Constitution: A Guide

August 12th: GOP insiders: Trump can’t win

August 19th: GOP insiders: Trump’s overhaul won’t succeed

This was about Mr. Trump hiring Steve Bannon.

September 27th: Insiders: Hillary won

This was about the first debate.

October 5th: Insiders: Pence outclassed Trump

The vice-presidential debate, which even Politico admitted was uninteresting to most Americans, had fewer viewers than any vice-presidential debate since 2000.

October 12th: How Long Can Evangelical Women Stay Behind Donald Trump?

October 14th: GOP insiders: Trump’s chances fading

November 4th: Democratic insiders: Clinton’s ground game will sink Trump

November 8th: Trump hopes for a miracle

Obviously, every single one of those stories mentioned above proved to be spectacularly wrong in every way!

So there you have it folks. Neither Snopes or Politico – the two top cited “fact checking” sources have themselves now been debunked – and these are just some of the countless examples of their open bias! Neither can be trusted and any article relying on either outlet for “fact checking” cannot be trusted.

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