The Memey for “Worst Fact Check” goes to PolitiFact!
Some of you probably thought this award would go to the “debunking” of the CNN racist baby chyron, but that was too obvious, so instead I’m giving it to this March PolitiFact fact check that drinking fish-tank cleaner won't prevent COVID-19. A claim that virtually no one made. The only example they could find was an obscure local news headline from North Dakota, which didn't clarify the rather obvious fact that while chloroquine is an ingredient in fish tank cleaner, that doesn't mean you should ingest it. But no one was seriously suggesting substituting fish tank cleaner for prescription drugs.
And the cautionary tale of the man who died ingesting the fish tank cleaner was a...very fishy story. While police ultimately ruled the death an accident, friends reported the man as level headed and not prone to impulsivity, being a retired mechanical engineer with an extensive science background.
His wife, meanwhile, was described as "not well" by friends, and the marriage rocky and one-sided. She reportedly berated him in public constantly, destroyed his model airplane collection when he returned late for a meal, and was arrested for domestic assault when she swung a mounted birdhouse at him. The charges were later dropped when the husband testified on her behalf.
The wife had other red flags, like being on long-term disability from debilitating mental and physical health problems she claimed came from gender and age discrimination at her job at John Deere (she was in her 40s at the time). This followed another lawsuit against Cedar Valley Medical Clinic, when she was younger and claimed discrimination then for being a young girl. Her psychologist in the Deere trial claimed she had PTSD and was often angry and full of adrenaline.
This is the context to which the man, who was given the fish tank cleaner by his wife which contained 20X the treatment dose of chloroquine, should be viewed. At best, a questionable tragedy, and one that conveniently blamed Trump as the culprit for touting chloroquine. Which, of course, was the real reason for the fact check, like so many others. Not to debunk a real claim, but to dunk on Trump.
Runners-up in the comments.
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/mar/24/blog-posting/drinking-chloroquine-fish-tank-cleaner-wont-stop-c/
https://freebeacon.com/latest-news/death-of-arizona-man-from-chloroquine-ruled-an-accident/
Stay tuned for more Memey Awards, they run until the end of the year. For a complete list of the 2020 Memeys (updated in real time):
http://memepoliceman.com/the-2020-memeys/
▪️This is a proposal that pertains only to graduate level nursing degrees, not undergraduate ones (which were never considered professional degrees). The proposal will have a 30-60 day public comment period next year, where groups can object, before the DoE will decide on it.
▪️This is about how much federal student loans someone can take out for a particular degree. The cap on graduate degrees is $100k ($20,500/yr), while a “professional degree” limit is $200k ($50k/yr).
▪️Under the new rule proposal, professional degrees include:
🔹Pharmacy
🔹Dentistry
🔹Veterinary medicine
🔹Chiropractic
🔹Law
🔹Medicine (including osteopathic medicine & podiatry)
🔹Optometry
🔹Theology
▪️The nursing degrees excluded are ones like master of science in nursing (MSN), doctor of nursing practice (DNP) and PhD in nursing. These degrees would be limited to $100k in federal student loans, like all other graduate degrees.
▪️These changes came from the One Big Beautiful Bill’s...
▪️The left keeps using this meme but they don’t actually believe it. If you believe SNAP subsidizes companies to pay below a “living wage” this implies that if you take food stamps away they would suddenly pay a higher, “living” wage. So why not get rid of food stamps, then?!
▪️Except they know, and everyone knows, this isn’t true. Wages are set by supply and demand, not some mythical “living wage” metric. Absent food stamps there would actually be downward, not upward, pressure on wages, because the reality is food stamps subsidize the poor to not work as much as they might otherwise need to.
▪️Without SNAP, some low income people would need to work more hours to make ends meet, increasing the availability of low-skilled labor and lowering wages (all else being equal).
▪️Plus, we all know the left loves and supports food stamps. Which means, by this meme’s logic, they love to subsidize corporate profits. But they don’t really, they just think this ...
▪️Wait, this is the guy libertarians and the new right rave about being a great historian?! This sounds like a clueless meme from The Other 98%, except they wouldn’t add in the bizarre defense of feudal lords. Feudalism didn’t deprive peasants of their livelihoods for abstract goals? This is total fantasy.
▪️Amazon employs 1.55M, so this is less than 2% of their workforce, although these cuts will be to corporate, which employs 350k, so 8.5% of that. The CEO says there is an excess of bureaucracy at Amazon, and AI can automate certain repetitive tasks. Also, much of the cuts will be to HR, which is expected shrink by 15%, yay. Managers and HR are peasants now?
▪️I don’t know the inner workings of Amazon, and neither does Darryl, but this seems to be normal management practice to keep a company efficient and competitive. Given the immense size of Amazon the numbers look large, but far bigger shakeups happen all the time in the private sector. Apparently, under the new ...
