{"id":107781,"date":"2023-03-05T15:26:01","date_gmt":"2023-03-05T20:26:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thedailygouge.com\/?p=107781"},"modified":"2023-03-05T15:26:05","modified_gmt":"2023-03-05T20:26:05","slug":"the-daily-gouge-archive-friday-march-3rd-2023","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thedailygouge.com\/?p=107781","title":{"rendered":"The Daily Gouge Archive, Friday, March 3rd, 2023"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s Friday, March 3rd, 2023…but before we begin, we’ll allow Jim Geraghty and his NRO<\/em> associates a moment to gloat, particularly since, early on…<\/strong><\/p>\n

We Told You the Truth about Covid <\/span><\/a>(and a Whole Lot More<\/span><\/a>)<\/span><\/h1>\n

As Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Wrote: \u2018Live Not by Lies<\/span>\u2019<\/span><\/h3>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

“The theme of\u00a0our current webathon<\/a><\/span><\/em><\/span>\u00a0is \u201ccombatting left-wing lies<\/a><\/em><\/span>.\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Hey, remember when\u00a0NPR reported in April 2020<\/a><\/span><\/em><\/span>\u00a0that \u201cscientists\u201d had \u201cdebunked\u201d the lab-leak theory?<\/span> Remember when the\u00a0Washington Post<\/em>\u00a0called the lab-leak theory<\/a><\/span><\/em><\/span>\u00a0a \u201cdebunked\u201d \u201cconspiracy theory\u201d? Remember when Apoorva Mandavilli, a reporter covering Covid-19 for the\u00a0New York Times<\/em>,\u00a0contended that the lab-leak theory was a racist conspiracy theory<\/a><\/span><\/em>?<\/span> As they used to say in that late \u201990s\u00a0Saturday Night Live\u00a0parody of NPR<\/a><\/span>,\u00a0\u201cGood times, good times.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The George Orwell quote, \u201cTo see what is in front of one\u2019s nose needs a constant struggle\u201d is almost a clich\u00e9 in journalism circles by now.<\/span> But we get it, don\u2019t we? As the world of news became an increasingly discordant cacophony, it became clearer and clearer that if you followed politics, national events, or the world stage, you\u2019d run into a lot of shameless liars<\/em><\/span>.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t mean<\/em><\/span> differences of opinion, exaggerations, understandable errors while speaking off the cuff, or predictions that later proved erroneous. I mean just flat-out two-plus-two-equals-five versions of wrong<\/em><\/span>. I\u2019m talking about things such as:<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

    \n
  • John Fetterman\u2019s doctor declaring<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/a>, shortly before the lone debate in last year\u2019s Pennsylvania Senate race, that he \u201chas no work restrictions and can work full duty in public office.\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n
  • There are people who want you to believe that\u00a0an octogenarian president has no significant restrictions on his ability to perform his duties<\/a><\/span><\/em><\/span>. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre claimed that Biden has so much energy she \u201ccan\u2019t even keep up with him.\u201d\u00a0Our eyes and ears tell us otherwise<\/a><\/span><\/em><\/span>.<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n
  • Karine Jean-Pierre also recently claimed<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/span><\/a>\u00a0that Florida governor Ron DeSantis wanted to block \u201cthe study of Black Americans.\u201d\u00a0Florida state law requires the teaching of African-American history<\/a><\/span><\/em><\/span>; what DeSantis objected to was the portions of the draft of the proposed AP African-American studies curricula\u00a0obtained by<\/a><\/span><\/em><\/span>\u00a0National Review<\/span>\u00a0that contended that color-blindness is a form of covert racism.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n
  • The president defended his\u00a0keeping classified documents in boxes near his Corvette<\/a><\/span><\/em><\/span>\u00a0at one of his Delaware houses because, \u201cMy Corvette is in a locked garage. Okay? So, it\u2019s not like they\u2019re sitting out in the street.\u201d That does not come anywhere near the requirements for making a site secure for the storage of classified documents under the law.\u00a0Biden also insisted<\/a><\/span><\/em><\/span>\u00a0that, \u201cPeople know I take classified documents and classified material seriously,\u201d after investigators found four separate batches of classified materials in four separate insecure places.<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n
  • Biden boasted, \u201cWe literally cut the federal debt in half by $1.4 trillion.\u201d He\u00a0did not do this literally or figuratively<\/a><\/span><\/em>; the debt is $24.6 trillion.<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n
  • Vice President Kamala Harris insisted in October that, \u201cWe have a secure border<\/a><\/span><\/em><\/span>\u00a0in that that is a priority for any nation, including ours and our administration.\u201d A declaration that a secure border is a priority is not the same as actually securing the border. If the border were secure, fewer migrants would be trying to cross it; U.S. Customs and Border Protection would not\u00a0be regularly experiencing more than 200,000 encounters per month<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/a>.<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n
  • President Biden warned that voting laws in Georgia and elsewhere amounted to \u201cJim Crow 2.0,\u201d and \u201can atrocity.\u201d And then that state had record turnout in the midterm elections, and a University of Georgia survey found that\u00a0zero percent\u00a0of black respondents<\/a><\/span><\/em>\u00a0said their voting experience in Georgia was poor in the 2022 midterm election. Around 73 percent of black and white voters alike said their voting experience was excellent.<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n
  • Remember\u00a0the contention in<\/a><\/span><\/em><\/span>\u00a0the\u00a0Indianapolis Star\u00a0<\/em>that, \u201cOne of Buttigieg\u2019s primary qualifications for a cabinet role is that he was the mayor of South Bend\u201d?\u00a0We were right to be skeptical<\/a><\/span><\/em><\/span>!<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n
  • Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer insisted that\u00a0the spy balloon traversing the entire continent was a \u201chumiliation for China,\u201d not the United States<\/a><\/span><\/em><\/span>, even though General Glen VanHerck, the commander of North American Aerospace Defense Command and U.S. Northern Command,\u00a0said of past balloon incursions<\/a>: \u201cI will tell you that we did not detect those threats. And that\u2019s a domain awareness gap that we have to figure out.\u201d Wait, which country was humiliated again?<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n
  • Remember when the Chinese government was cited as a role-model for Covid-19 public-health responses \u2014 that China had \u201cbeat the virus and roared back<\/a><\/span><\/em><\/span>,\u201d as the\u00a0New York Times<\/em>\u00a0put it?\u00a0We knew China\u2019s official numbers had no relation to what was actually happening on the ground<\/a><\/span><\/em><\/span>!<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n
  • President Biden asserted that\u00a0January 6 rioters\u2019 chants somehow motivated or triggered the nutjob who attacked Paul Pelosi<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/a>, instead of focusing on the\u00a0consequences of several successive law-enforcement failures<\/a><\/span><\/em><\/span>\u00a0involving that nutjob.<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n
  • Maxine Waters\u00a0praised Sam Bankman-Fried for being so \u201ccandid<\/a><\/span><\/em><\/span>,\u201d\u00a0shortly before he was\u00a0arrested and charged<\/a><\/span><\/em><\/span>\u00a0with defrauding investors, wire and securities fraud, and conspiracy to circumvent campaign-finance regulations.<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n
  • Does the\u00a0New\u00a0<\/em>York Times<\/em>\u00a0follow \u201cthe lead of far-right hate groups in its coverage of trans issues\u201d? An\u00a0irate group of activists wants you to believe that<\/a><\/span><\/em><\/span>.<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n
  • Even after independent, non-conservative journalism institutions such as the\u00a0New York Times<\/em>\u00a0and the\u00a0Washington Post<\/em>\u00a0verified the contents of Hunter Biden\u2019s laptop, Representative\u00a0Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called it the \u201chalf-fake laptop story<\/a><\/span><\/em><\/span>.\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n
  • Everyone who assured you that your data was safe on TikTok?\u00a0They lied, too<\/a><\/span><\/em><\/span>.<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n
  • Randi Weingarten and other teachers\u2019 union officials now talk about year-long school closures as this unforeseeable disaster for children\u2019s education,\u00a0as if she and her allies hadn\u2019t led the fight to keep schools closed in late 2020 and almost all of 2021<\/a><\/em><\/span>.<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    And those are just the recent lies; before then, the president assured us that the surge of migrants at the border was a routine seasonal pattern, that the Afghan army was well-trained and well-equipped and deserved our confidence, that we wouldn\u2019t see helicopters evacuating people from the U.S. embassy in Afghanistan, that inflation was transitory, that the U.S. would not enter a recession, that the supply-chain crisis didn\u2019t occur, that Covid testing would be easy and plentiful last winter, and that the infant-formula shortage would get resolved quickly.<\/span> This is all separate from Biden\u2019s implausible<\/em><\/span> and in some cases indisputably falsified tales<\/span><\/em> \u2014 that he\u00a0used to drive a tractor trailer<\/a><\/span><\/em><\/span>; that he was\u00a0arrested protesting for civil rights<\/a><\/span><\/em><\/span>; that he was\u00a0arrested trying to see Nelson Mandela in prison<\/a><\/span><\/em><\/span>\u00a0and that\u00a0Mandela later thanked him<\/a><\/em><\/span>;\u00a0that he was shot at in Iraq<\/a><\/span><\/em><\/span>; that he\u00a0personally confronted Slobodan Milosevic<\/a><\/span><\/em><\/span>; that former Israeli prime minister\u00a0Golda Meir wanted him to be her liaison to Egyptians<\/a><\/span><\/em><\/span>\u00a0about the Suez Canal; that\u00a0as a high-school and college student<\/a><\/em><\/span>, he went to both Catholic Mass and services in a black church every day, and so on.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

    NR has a whole regular feature,\u00a0Forgotten Fact Checks<\/a><\/span><\/em><\/span>, in which it remembers that Biden and his top officials\u00a0contended that Border Patrol agents on horseback had whipped Haitian migrants crossing the border<\/a><\/em><\/span>, that\u00a0Representative Ilhan Omar claimed she<\/a><\/span><\/em><\/span>\u00a0\u201cwasn\u2019t aware of the fact that there are tropes about Jews and money,\u201d that certain journalists and elected officials\u00a0claimed shadow-banning of Twitter accounts was a conspiracy theory<\/a><\/em><\/span>, and so on.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

    A few days ago, I pointed out that\u00a0the rambling hosts of\u00a0The View<\/a><\/span><\/em><\/span>\u00a0regularly dish up as much disinformation and misinformation as any demonized social-media network. Charlie has\u00a0regularly showcased the spectacularly shameless lies of Rebekah Jones<\/a><\/span><\/em><\/span>, the disgraced fabulist who was fired from the Florida Department of Health for insubordination and other assorted lunacy.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

    You can find figures on the right who lie, too, and NR calls them out as well. It turns out that Sean Hannity\u00a0never believed President Trump\u2019s claim that Dominion rigged tabulation machines to \u201csteal\u201d the 2020 election from him<\/a><\/span><\/em><\/span>. But Hannity said the opposite on air<\/a><\/span><\/em><\/span>.<\/span> We\u00a0call out the former president\u2019s lies<\/a><\/span><\/em><\/span>, stirring up a hornet\u2019s nest among his loud contingent of remaining diehard supporters. And then there\u2019s\u00a0the notorious George Santos<\/a><\/span><\/em><\/span>.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

    Of course, the mainstream media and its self-appointed fact-checkers do a pretty thorough job of calling out Republican officials\u2019 and prominent conservatives\u2019 lies. They just seem to lose interest and motivation<\/em><\/span> when it comes to Democratic officials and prominent progressives.<\/span> Sure, they do it now and then, but it often feels like their hearts aren\u2019t really into it<\/span><\/em>. As the\u00a0Times<\/em>\u00a0gently put it, \u201cBiden, Storyteller in Chief, Spins Yarns That Often Unravel<\/a><\/span><\/em><\/span>.\u201d<\/span> Like the commander in chief is Aesop<\/em><\/span> or something.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

    Have you noticed that a lot of people lie to you shamelessly?<\/span> Every day, someone tries to pelt you with a new hailstorm of BS. Week after week, some particularly unscrupulous, ambitious players in the world of politics try to convince you to believe that two plus two equals five<\/em><\/span>.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

    They do this so that you\u2019ll get angry at the other party, or keep voting for them and their allies, or ignore their scandals, or believe that they\u2019re the only ones who can fix the problem. They often want to paint common sense as extreme, and the extreme as common sense<\/em><\/span>.<\/span> I think in some cases, like the president, they prefer to live in a golden-hued alternate fantasy world where they are always right about everything and their critics are always wrong<\/strong><\/span>…”<\/p>\n

    Here’s the Juice: Had Thomas Jefferson known as much about Joe Biden as we, he would have added another self-evident truth to his list, that the man is a deliberate and pathological liar who makes the Flanagan brothers…<\/strong><\/p>\n