Quote:Duffel Blog has fooled yet another member of Congress.
Most recently, the military-centric satirical website was inadvertently cited during a Wednesday hearing about extremism in the military, in which several Republican lawmakers argued that the Defense Department could end up infringing on troops’ First Amendment rights by trying to get rid of white supremacists from the ranks.
On Wednesday, Rep. Pat Fallon (R-Texas) was making the point that the number of veterans and reservists arrested after the Jan. 6 insurrection was relatively small, when he decided to pose a question to Lecia Brooks, chief of staff of the Southern Poverty Law Center. “Ms. Brooks, just a yes or no question for you: Has your organization named the American Legion as a hate group?” Fallon asked. Brooks was initially confused. She first looked at documents in front of her and then turned over her left shoulder to consult with someone else before answering that she did not believe that was correct.
“OK, I’ve found it and it did,” Fallon continued. “And how about – were you aware that the organization named the VFW, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, as a hate group?” Still puzzled, Brooks replied: “Not at our current census, no.” “You had in the past,” Fallon said.
Roughly half an hour later, a revelation came when Brooks said emphatically that the Southern Poverty Law Center had never named the Veterans of Foreign Wars or American Legion as hate groups. “That assertion appeared as satire in a military satire blog known as ‘Duffel Blog,’” she said. The chairman of the House Armed Services Committee broke into the conversation to underscore the importance of separating truth from satire.
“That’s why we have these hearings, is to try to get to the facts,” said Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.). “Then we can debate what to do with them, but we can’t be throwing out a bunch of misinformation.”
This congressional hearing on extremism in the military is amazing. They are talking about Duffel Blog articles as evidence that the SPLC labeled the VFW & American Legion as hate groups. They even had some guy ranting from the front seat of his car wearing his sunglasses!
Duffel Blog is a longtime satirical website created and run by Paul Szoldra, who is also editor in chief of Task & Purpose. Szoldra was not involved in writing or editing this story. This is far from the first time that a lawmaker has mistaken Duffel Blog for a mainstream media news site. In 2012, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) was fooled by a Duffel Blog post about detainees being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, receiving G.I. Bill benefits.
Then in 2014, James Moran, who was a Democratic congressman from Virginia at the time, said his office was flooded with calls about a Duffel Blog article that joked he had introduced a bill requiring Iraq and Afghanistan veterans to register with the Department of Homeland Security and barring them from watching violent war movies on cable and living within 1,000 feet of gun ranges, bars, and liquor stores. However, we also live in an age when the line between truth and parody are often intertwined. In March 2020, a Duffel Blog story accurately predicted that commanders would hold mandatory all hands formations to discuss how to stop the spread novel coronavirus (COVID-19). Task & Purpose later reported that was actually happening. Objectively speaking, Duffel Blog broke that story.
(03-26-2021, 07:57 AM)BigPapaKain Wrote: Feel free to post something that has someone from the other side being fooled by a longtime satire website and we'll discuss it.
I'm sure it's happened. I can recall several times someone quoted The Onion. How about claiming that an island was going to tip over?
(03-26-2021, 07:57 AM)BigPapaKain Wrote: Feel free to post something that has someone from the other side being fooled by a longtime satire website and we'll discuss it.
It's just fun to watch the blatant bias, instead of realizing both sides suck just as bad.
(03-26-2021, 11:21 AM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: I'm sure it's happened. I can recall several times someone quoted The Onion. How about claiming that an island was going to tip over?
That's great. Let's start with that.
It's funny to see people so detached from reality that they'd really jump on some catchy headline to get their names put in one. That is a painful watch - make your point (wrong as it is) and move on you clown (not you, the rep in the video).
(03-26-2021, 11:28 AM)Mickeypoo Wrote: It's just fun to watch the blatant bias, instead of realizing both sides suck just as bad.
Yet you only seem to want to bash one, and derail threads asking why there is a bias toward your preferred side of the aisle.
From what I can see, most here don't have an issue calling out their side when their side does something worth being called out for. Maybe you should be more upset that your side is constantly doing dumb shit to get themselves raked over the coals.
(03-26-2021, 11:46 AM)BigPapaKain Wrote: That's great. Let's start with that.
It's funny to see people so detached from reality that they'd really jump on some catchy headline to get their names put in one. That is a painful watch - make your point (wrong as it is) and move on you clown (not you, the rep in the video).
Yet you only seem to want to bash one, and derail threads asking why there is a bias toward your preferred side of the aisle.
From what I can see, most here don't have an issue calling out their side when their side does something worth being called out for. Maybe you should be more upset that your side is constantly doing dumb shit to get themselves raked over the coals.
I don't have a side and that was one thread, singular. I only seem to want to bash one? Oh really? Such as?
It just so happens that calling out their "side" only happens about 1% of the time. Hmmmm............must be that "side" is near perfect.
Yesterday I stuck up for Harris saying she should at least be given the chance to solve the border crisis problem before people say she cannot or won't, even though I think she is just an awful human being and I just posted in another thread that Trump sucks just as much as Biden and they both made/make us look bad.
(03-26-2021, 12:16 PM)Mickeypoo Wrote: I don't have a side and that was one thread, singular. I only seem to want to bash one? Oh really? Such as?
It just so happens that calling out their "side" only happens about 1% of the time. Hmmmm............must be that "side" is near perfect.
Yesterday I stuck up for Harris saying she should at least be given the chance to solve the border crisis problem before people say she cannot or won't, even though I think she is just an awful human being and I just posted in another thread that Trump sucks just as much as Biden and they both made/make us look bad.
Both sides are constantly doing dumb shit!
Oh my bad - I don't haunt these message boards on a daily basis seeing whose defending who. What I do see on my visits here is you constantly attacking the left while remaining quiet about the right, and then today I noticed you throwing a hissy that another GoP member got caught saying dumb shit and being upset that nobody here has condemned the left for anything, ignoring the fact that most here called for Cuomo to resign and have been critical of Biden's early failures.
I'll make sure I read your entire life story next time I make an casual observation about you derailing a thread to make sure I at least have some ducks in a row.
(03-26-2021, 01:36 PM)BigPapaKain Wrote: Oh my bad - I don't haunt these message boards on a daily basis seeing whose defending who. What I do see on my visits here is you constantly attacking the left while remaining quiet about the right, and then today I noticed you throwing a hissy that another GoP member got caught saying dumb shit and being upset that nobody here has condemned the left for anything, ignoring the fact that most here called for Cuomo to resign and have been critical of Biden's early failures.
I'll make sure I read your entire life story next time I make an casual observation about you derailing a thread to make sure I at least have some ducks in a row.
Complete mischaracterization of what I do, but hey, whatever makes you feel good bro.
Constantly attacking the left? I think you have me confused with someone else. Care to point out where I am "constantly attacking the left"?
(03-26-2021, 12:16 PM)Mickeypoo Wrote: I don't have a side and that was one thread, singular. I only seem to want to bash one? Oh really? Such as?
It just so happens that calling out their "side" only happens about 1% of the time. Hmmmm............must be that "side" is near perfect.
Yesterday I stuck up for Harris saying she should at least be given the chance to solve the border crisis problem before people say she cannot or won't, even though I think she is just an awful human being and I just posted in another thread that Trump sucks just as much as Biden and they both made/make us look bad.
Both sides are constantly doing dumb shit!
I dunno Mick. I noted that you stuck up for Harris. And I didn't think you were especially "biased" if you didn't like her (though I don't see anything "awful" about her.)
But I'd have to say some bias is involved in saying Trump sucks just as much as Biden. That's not being unbiased so much as missing difference between DUMB SHIT and dumb shit.
Biden makes us look bad to Putin maybe. Not to our allies.
Biden has said nothing about POWs not being heroes, or how he trusts Putin over our intel agencies, or suggested researching disinfectant scrubs to cure COVID, or insisted on calling it the "China virus" as attacks on Asians began to spike. I'll bet a month's salary that as the next election looms he will not call it rigged from months before hand, and if he loses he will not refuse to concede, call state Democrats to help him throw the election, and finally send an uncontrollable crowd to the Capitol on the day the vote is certified.
Saying "Trump sucks as much" implies Biden is the benchmark for suck, not the President who gave Kim two free summits for nothing, blew up the Iran deal, created a superspreader COVID event at the WH while he was supposed to be modeling CDC guidelines for the nation, and allowed Turkey to kill hundreds of our truest allies in the Middle East--on a whim.
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