The Biden administration seemingly can't do anything right, and instead of improving, it's going after those who tell the truth about its mistakes. Rather than using resources to secure the border, deport illegal immigrant criminals, or address runaway inflation, it's apparently relying on massive in-kind donations from partisan censors who claim the mantle of fact-checkers but are indistinguishable from speech police aimed at protecting Biden's flailing administration.
Lead Stories is one such outfit that claims to be an arbiter of truth but is little more than a public relations and censorship arm of the Democratic Party, a clown car of unbelievable political spin and utter nonsense. Their crew is on the warpath against anyone who dares to tell the truth about the Biden administration's disastrous tenure in office and the effects of Biden's feckless leadership.
Most recently, the drive-by hatchet crew at Lead Stories decided to go after coverage of another Biden administration disaster: a grant allocation that would award up to $30 million in taxpayer dollars aimed at so-called "harm reduction" programs based on President Biden's stated commitment to "racial equity."
As I reported for Townhall at the time the grant application materials were circulating online, among the items that grant funds can be used for are "safe smoking kits/supplies," a bureaucratically sanitized euphemism for a kit that usually includes clean crack pipes.
These kits, along with clean needles, disposal containers for used sharps, testing supplies to detect fentanyl, infectious disease tests, vaccination services, and other clean medical supplies, are all aimed at preventing the spread of diseases that are often rampant among drug users who share needles, broken pipes, and other items.
But the inclusion of clean crack pipes with other grant-eligible materials was especially noteworthy. First, because such "safe smoking kits" have been offered before at a more local level, including not too far away from D.C. nor Biden's home state of Delaware in Anne Arundel County, Maryland. The results were not what was promised, and crack pipes were pulled from the safe smoking kits in future distributions following outcry from the black community.
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The Biden administration grant program through which safe smoking kits, i.e., crack pipes and other paraphernalia are eligible for purchase — funded by taxpayer revenue as outlined in the American Rescue Plan — is also newsworthy given Hunter Biden's questionable life choices that have more than once been related to smoking crack (or parmesan cheese, apparently).
But reporting the truth — that a Biden administration program allocating millions of taxpayer dollars to a program through which clean crack pipes can be purchased and provided to those struggling with drug addiction — has drawn the ire of the White House and partisan hacks who call themselves fact-checkers.
After the White House took hits from Townhall and other conservative media outlets for the grant program, Jen Psaki denied from the White House podium that crack pipes were being provided through the program, contradicting an earlier quote from an HHS spokesperson who confirmed pipes would be provided.
But damn the truth and unleash the spin-and-cover cycle from Democrat-allied fact-checkers. Biden had again botched a program, criticism was incoming, and the truth had to be buried. Lead Stories quickly released their supposedly "official" ruling on the matter and, unsurprising for the whimpering Democrat lapdogs that they are, stated that the "Biden Administration Is NOT Funding 'Crack Pipes, Heroin' For Drug Use."
And because Lead Stories says so, their determination is inexplicably considered final and unimpeachable by Facebook. But their own fact-check does not debunk the claim — nay, the truth — that the Biden administration created and is having its Department of Health and Human Services administer a program that allowed crack pipes to be acquired and distributed. Therefore, Townhall's headline, "Biden Grant Program to Fund Free Crack Pipes for 'Equity,'" is true. Just not in the eyes of the biased and reality-denying fact-checkers at Lead Stories.
Their denial runs so deep that when, as Lead Stories included in their fact check, "An HHS spokesman declined to specify what is included in the smoking kits," the fact-checkers took that as proof there are no crack pipes being provided. But anyone with two brain cells to rub together would conclude that HHS is not saying what's in the kits because crack pipes *are* part of the covered products. Oh, and don't forget, an HHS spokesperson confirmed that pipes would be provided through the grant program in a statement to our friends at The Washington Free Beacon. But that was earlier, and the truth has to be revised to remove the fact that the Biden administration made a mistake and got caught with a crack pipe in its hand.
So Lead Stories twisted the statement to fit their purposes and added a completely subjective claim that "Similar distribution efforts provide mouthpieces to prevent glass cuts, rubber bands to prevent burns, and filters to minimize the risk of disease." Lead Stories links to a typo-ridden explainer page for a North Carolina drug information site that describes what is included in only its specific kits.
If one instance of a "safe smoking kit" being provided without a clean pipe is enough for Lead Stories to rule out the possibility that the Biden grants will be used to provide pipes to drug addicts, then one story where pipes were provided in safe smoking kits — as was the anecdote from Maryland quoted in Townhall's story — is enough to revalidate the claim. At least it is according to Lead Stories' utterly pointless "standards."
In the rest of their alleged takedown of the not-debunked coverage of Biden's grant program, Lead Stories seems to entirely rest their case on a technicality that as long as the Biden administration doesn't buy crack pipes and carpet bomb the United States with them, the president gets to wash his hands of whatever the grant money he provides is used on — even though the Biden administration sets the standards for what can/must be purchased with Biden bucks awarded through the grant.
It's utter nonsense, but it doesn't stop the smug fools at Lead Stories who derive their value from telling Americans they're not actually seeing what they are, in fact, seeing. And while Democrats continue to rant about the dangers of misinformation, it is they who peddle the most absurd statements as supposedly unimpeachable facts. The same power-tripping goons who provide cover for the Biden administration also attack and censor those who point out men can't get pregnant. Their standard is to have no standards, just to advance that which preserves power for their leftist overlords who give them refuge from serious criticism in return.
At Townhall, we couldn't care any less what fact-checkers at Lead Stories or anywhere else think. That's why we publish the truth and tell the real stories that the mainstream media and Democrats want ignored. They can try to intimidate us into silence, but thanks to the support of Townhall VIP members, we're able to keep telling the truth without fear of being fact-checked into oblivion by the goons at Lead Stories and their Big Tech censor friends.
Help Townhall continue to report the truth about the Biden administration and fight back against the biased left-wing "fact-checkers" who are nothing more than the propaganda arm of the Democratic Party.
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