Earlier this week the Washington Free Beacon reported on a story that seemed to indicate Hunter Biden is calling the shots.
According to their reporting a $30 million grant program that begins in May will give money to nonprofits and local governments to help make drug use safer for addicts. We also learned that “Applicants for the grants are prioritized if they treat a majority of ‘underserved communities,’ including African Americans and ‘LGBTQ+ persons,’ as established under President Joe Biden’s executive order on ‘advancing racial equity.'”
Part of the plan includes providing crack pipes to addicts, which the HHS says will “reduce the risk of infection when smoking substances with glass pipes, which can lead to infections through cuts and sores.” San Francisco, which has 50% more drug addicts than high school students, has implemented a similar program in the past.
Impressively, the so-called fact checkers managed “fact check” this supposedly “misrepresented” story while admitting that it’s true.
Rating something that is factually true as "mostly false" because it makes the administration look bad isn't fact-checking, it's spin. They confirmed all of the facts in their debunking. This happens far too often. https://t.co/vbKqA3bUG1 pic.twitter.com/NCsEQo1LyQ
— AG (@AGHamilton29) February 9, 2022
According to the Snopes brain trust:
[The crack pipe distribution] was just one of around 20 components of the grant program and far from its most prominent or important one, despite being the primary focus of outraged news reports. The purpose of the program was to reduce harm and the risk of infection among drug users, not to advance racial equity, although that was a secondary consideration.
So in other words, according to Snopes it’s not true that the Biden administration has a program to distribute crack pipes to addicts because the Biden administration has a plan to distribute crack pipes to addicts in combination with other policies in a similar theme.
Snopes also took issue with reporting that the administration’s crack pipe giveaway was to advance racial equity, which they say isn’t true because the grants encouraged recipients to advance racial equity *while* working for harm reduction, not *from* harm reduction – a completely meaningless distinction the fact checker actually thinks is a rebuttal:
Secondly, the provision of safer smoking supplies did not have as its purpose advancing the cause of racial equity. Rather, its purpose was, quite logically, to reduce harm and infection among existing drug users. However, the grant description did state that priority would be given to applicants who serve communities that are historically underserved. In other words, the grant’s terms encouraged recipients to advance racial equity while working for harm reduction, not the other way round — a crucial distinction which many outlets got wrong.
This is obviously in contradiction to the second sentence of the first paragraph I quoted, that “The purpose of the program was to reduce harm and the risk of infection among drug users, not to advance racial equity, although that was a secondary consideration.” So they couldn’t debunk the story because it’s true, but at least they sort of fact checked themselves by accident?
UPDATE: Facebook partnered “Lead Stories” is now joining in, offering a similarly weak fact check that mostly centers around quoting an HHS official calling this a “harm reduction” program. They deny that any part of the “reduction program” funds will be used towards crack pipes, but the Beacon had already confirmed that they will in their reporting.
Facebook is using its "fact-checking program" to censor the @FreeBeacon story. Again, the government has provided zero proof to dispute the story. The HHS confirmed that the "kits" are used to smoke crack, meth, and "any illicit substance." pic.twitter.com/fe3wzagKRo
— Patrick Hauf (@PatrickHauf) February 9, 2022
HHS panicked after the story was published and claimed it was "blatant misinformation." Then came the fact checks. Then came the social media labels.
— Patrick Hauf (@PatrickHauf) February 9, 2022
Jen Psaki has also attempted to change reality about the story at a presser today:
an HHS spokesperson told us they were used to smoke crack what am i missing here
— Joe Gabriel Simonson (@SaysSimonson) February 9, 2022
Matt Palumbo is the author of The Man Behind the Curtain: Inside the Secret Network of George Soros
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