Minnesota doesn't deserve this
Scott Jensen is railing against the people who are in a position to call him out on his absurdities, including professional fact checkers and the Minnesota Board of Medical Practice.
Photo credit: IFCN (International Fact Checking Network)
Looking at the faces of all the folks pictured here at a recent annual fact-checking summit, one can’t help but feel a renewed admiration for them and their work in combating misinformation around the globe. Unless, that is, one happens to be a cynical, self-absorbed candidate for Governor of Minnesota, who said the following about them:
"Reconstruction Part 2 -- Fact Checkers"
Hi. Doctor Scott Jensen. For months I've been saying we'll get through this pandemic, and trust me we will, but as we do, we've got some serious reconstruction that needs to be done. We know that mistakes have been made: sometimes well-intentioned, sometimes almost fiendishly. We know that the American people have been kept from understanding critical data points, models that have been so far off as to be ridiculous have not been, if you will, shared with Americans and with Minnesotans in terms of: how did this model get created? I remember when governor Walz in Minnesota said we were going to have seventy-four thousand deaths, and I didn't buy that. And then he said twenty-nine thousand deaths, and I didn't buy that. And then there were going to be almost a thousand people dying every day in the month of July, and I didn't buy that. I don't know if we got to a thousand deaths in the whole month of July.
So, there's going to be some serious reconstruction work. But as we do that, I'm puzzled about this phenomenon of cancel culture. We've got these hoity-toity, taking-a-high-moral-ground people called fact checkers, and I've come across them a few times now — USA Today, they said I was telling the truth. The Associated Press, they said I had some falsehoods in a video because I mentioned something being issued by the World Health Organization, and actually it'd been a re-issue, and I had mentioned that flu cases dropped dramatically in March of 2020, and they said that that might've been the case but that wasn't the only reason. Bottom line is they fact checked me and said that it was false. Facebook has come out and tagged me, but I noticed the other day they also went after President Biden. Yeah, president Biden said that we've now exceeded the number of COVID-19 deaths, and they are now greater than all the deaths in World War I, II, and Vietnam War together, and — ho! — the fact checkers are just jumping on that one, saying that's not true, he should've said World War II and the Korean War and Vietnam. Whatever. These fact checkers, I'd like to know if they're being paid a beginning six-figure salary, or do they get paid based on the times that they actually fact check, and do they get paid more if they criticize versus absolve? Because, honestly, I'm not buying what these fact checkers are doing. Who is fact checking the fact checkers? These people are just a part of the cancel culture. If someone's message is essentially true, shouldn't that stand up?
So, as we reconstruct what went wrong with COVID-19 and how we dealt with it, let's not forget social media, Facebook, censoring, cancelling, mainstream media, fact check: these people have no claim to the high moral ground. They may simply be reacting to a narrative that they're not buying into, and they're going to do everything they can to push their narrative. And have I gotten in their way? Yes, I have. And part of the reconstruction business that we're going to be about going forward is: what is their role? Think about it.
Similarly, Dr. Jensen threatened action against the State Board of Medical Practice, who has been investigating him for multiple complaints:
Republican gubernatorial candidate Scott Jensen threatens retaliation against medical board
For gubernatorial candidates, Minnesota deserves so much better than this.
"Who checks the fact checkers? You do." The IFCN's Code of Principles makes that clear:
https://www.ifcncodeofprinciples.poynter.org/
Would you tell Alli, aka Miss Information Kills to unblock me on her substack, so I can point out her lies and blonde moments? Thanks Scott!
We appreciate you dude!