Merchant of Death Exchanged

This week’s prisoner exchange with Russia saw notorious arms dealer Viktor Bout swapped to Russia for WNBA star Brittney Griner. Bout was arrested for attempting to supply Colombian FARC terrorists with antiaircraft missiles, millions of rounds of ammunition, and modern military weaponry, and has since served eleven years in a federal prison; Griner was caught with two empty vape canisters which held traces of cannabis oil and was imprisoned in a penal colony for four months of a nine year sentence following her August conviction.

(more…)

Election Update Explainer: Senate

There’s a lot of loose gossip going around about the slow vote counts that are delaying the final results in the Senate. Most of the conspiracy theories are patently false; there’s no reason to expect malfeasance anywhere, but for different reasons in each state. Having said that, there’s always the possibility of a challenge that would impact the final results regardless of the cause or the truth of any given conspiracy theory. The eventual determination, however, is always definitive for Senate races.

Let’s look at things state by state:

(more…)

Voting Against

Some of my friends have been asking people to not vote, as a protest against the corrupt system. It won’t work.

Don’t misunderstand me: I agree that the system is corrupt. Elections are regularly fixed — NOT, as the conspiracy theorists would suggest, by stuffed ballot boxes and voter farming, but rather by the simpler method of limiting the pool of candidates to those Wall Street and the Establishment would find acceptable. We have a choice between terrible and worse.

Which is why I intend to vote against.

(more…)

The Elephant In The Room

EDITORIAL

Disclaimer: The Not Fake News has endorsed the Forward Party.

A year ago, to great fanfare, former presidential candidate Andrew Yang announced the formation of a new kind of political movement in the “Forward Party”. In his eponymous book, he described a loose collection of candidates committed to moderation and compromise drawn from — and belonging to — both major American political parties. The slogan is meant to be descriptive: “Not Left or Right, but Forward”.

(more…)

Losing All Respect

EDITORIAL

“I heard his opinion, and I just lost all respect for him then and there.”

We’ve all heard people say this, or something very like it, especially over the course of the past few years. And, after all, how could we still respect someone who fell for such a transparent bit of propaganda, who listens to such an obvious con man, or who mistakes what’s broadcast on that channel for news?

(more…)

Fake News Alert: C2A

It’s election season, and the poorly-fabricated false memes are spreading. Be on the lookout, because they are definitely planning to lie to you.

This one’s almost believable unless you think it through: It’s a fake version of the Republican “Commitment To America” that has absolutely nothing in common with their actual platform, or for that matter their policies.

(more…)

The Not Fake News Update, 13 October 2022

On this date in 1307, a dawn raid was launched on the Knights Templar by King Philip IV of France, leading to the capture, torture, and execution of hundreds of innocent men. Philip was later named “the Fair”, but for his looks rather than his sense of justice.

Since that day, a lot of things have happened, most not newsworthy. Here are a few of the more recent events that you might have missed due to 24-hour news masquerading as disaster porn:

(more…)