State of the Union Address

Flip-flopping away…

Posted on by backuphill

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Did you see that? No, really, did you see that theater by the President last night? I am not even sure Biden was serious last night or if it was really intended to be a comedy show because there were so many obvious, moments of pandering and flip-flopping that I had to keep manually closing my jaw as it seemed it was frozen open last night.

I don’t really look for much when it comes to the State of the Union address. It typically is a clap-fest for whichever party is in control and there is a bunch of vague plans with grandios goals. There is almost never any substance and the political pandering to the party base is sickening.

I hope Biden is actually OK this morning because he must have strained his back or his neck or maybe some leg or arm muscles after all that flip-flopping he did regarding issues the independents and Republicans have been screaming about for two years. I haven’t seen fish do more flip-flopping than that.

Now he wants to protect our borders?

Now he wants to fund to the police?

Can you say playing to the crowd?

Well, some of the crowd. Remember that mask mandate? Suddenly dropped – science hasn’t magically changed. Remember that forced vaccination mandate? Remember all those people who lost their jobs and livelihoods. Suddenly all is supposed to be forgiven as he makes a few promises that will actually never be realized?

It was quite the show. As it always is…

Fact check

Posted on by backuphill

black and white laptop

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“Just the facts, ma’am, just the facts.”

The rise of fact checkers has never been more needed. We need to make sure our politicians are being truthful (because we all know their not, no matter what side their on). “The spin” is always in play and, quite frankly, can be rather disgusting when it gets right down to it.

So, I appreciate that we have people and organizations who do some fact checking. BUT, they are not exactly infallible. While they purport to be “unbiased,” they are not. We still need to watch for bias and we still need to be aware of leanings. Sure, they may not be as obvious in their bias as some media outlets, but it is still there. Example: simply by choosing what and what not to fact check and then report it could display bias.

Factcheck.org is one of my go to places for fact checking. It’s comprehensive and it appears to have little bias. However, there is still a problem. I’ll use the 2020 State of the Union Address from last night as a demonstration of what I was saying in the last paragraph. The linked article above only covers issues that the president got wrong or embellished. There is nothing in the article that points to where he was correct or telling the truth.

To me, that isn’t a balanced fact check. If you’re gonna do the job, do the whole job – line by line and tell us what is correct and what isn’t. Support it good research. Fact check it all. Once the speech is published in its entirety, fact check the whole thing. Don’t pick and choose what and what not to check.

So, if you are looking for more info, you can also check other places. Get a well rounded view of what is going on and what happened. Get info from every perspective, including from places deemed to have little bias. You can, again, use the president’s address from last night as an introduction to the site. The site is Allsides.org.

I know I have talked about these websites before. But I can’t help but make sure you have a place (or places) you can go to get information that is tainted as little as possible with bias. With a flood of information from anywhere and everywhere on the internet, you need to make sure that what you are consuming is as accurate as possible.

We can’t afford to be ignorant. We must be well informed.

Do your due diligence.