Staff Reports
The concept of fact-checking sure sounds like a great idea on paper. After all, with so much nonsense floating around, wouldn’t it be nice to have someone sift through the garbage to determine what’s true and what’s just plain stupid? The reality, however, is that fact-checkers often resemble the bitterest members of society, usually devoid of family and armed with a disdain for any viewpoints outside their echo chambers.
Take Snopes, for instance. It began as a reputable source for debunking urban myths, but it has since slunk down into the murky waters of political bias. One of their recent assignments led them to investigate a claim about Kamala Harris, which wouldn’t normally make headlines but did because it revealed a rather glaring admission. Harris allegedly stated that authorities could waltz right into people’s homes without any warrant to check if they were storing their firearms “safely.” Surprisingly, Snopes confirmed this, rolling over like a dog who’s finally been caught in a lie.
The infamous quote came from a 2007 press conference while Harris was the District Attorney of San Francisco. “Responsible behaviors” among gun owners, she claimed, would include letting law enforcement inspect their weapons at home. Imagine that! Plenty of video evidence supports this eyebrow-raising proclamation, but despite the mountains of proof, Snopes desperately sought to protect Harris, effectively shouting “But wait! She’s a gun owner herself!” This little outburst smells suspiciously like a defense mechanism for when the facts are too damning to deny.
This Is Why No One Takes Fact-Checkers Seriously https://t.co/jQ5xfCS9EY
— David Ryan (@djryan7_ryan) October 29, 2024
It gets even better. Harris’s history of gun control advocacy is far from consistent. During her tenure as District Attorney, she championed a handgun ban, and during her failed bid for the presidency, she proposed a mandatory buyback for assault weapons. It’s a wonder anyone believes her when she insists she wouldn’t try to confiscate guns. With such a record, it’s quite reasonable for Americans to distrust her claims. Yet that nugget of truth was casually brushed aside by Snopes, as if it had no bearing on the larger question at hand.
The attempt to distance Harris from her own words simply underscores the point that fact-checkers are not the bastions of honesty they want people to believe they are. Instead of serving the public good, they appear bent on defending their political allies no matter the cost. Whether it’s Harris or someone else, evidence and truth quickly take a backseat to narrative and spin. The ultimate takeaway is that while the notion of fact-checking might have started with noble intentions, it has perverted into a playground for those with an agenda, leaving the average American to sift through the rubble of truth on their own.
