That is the lie of the year? I know as well as anyone the extensive corruption of the Leftmedia’s “fact-checking” censorship regime, and that was still my reaction when I read that PolitiFact had chosen Donald Trump and JD Vance’s assertion that Haitian migrants were “eating the pets” as its Lie of the Year.

Our team worked on a list of better candidates that I’ll get to in a moment. First, PolitiFact’s story:

With a brazen disregard for facts, Donald Trump and his running mate repeatedly peddled a created story that in Springfield, Ohio, Haitian immigrants were eating pet dogs and cats.

With this claim, amplified before 67 million television viewers in his debate against Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump took his anti-migrant, the U.S. border-is-out-of-control campaign agenda to a new level.

“In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs,” Trump said on September 10. “The people that came in. They’re eating the cats. They’re eating … the pets of the people that live there. And this is what’s happening in our country. And it’s a shame.”

PolitiFact tersely rebutted, “City and county officials said repeatedly that it was not happening.” Nevertheless, PolitiFact fretted that the claims were followed by threats of violence and Haitian migrants fearing to send their kids to school and so forth. The clear implication from the rest of the lengthy story is that the primary explanation for the “lie” was the tellers’ racism and bigotry.

Two things are true here: One, if such threats occurred, they would be disgraceful and shouldn’t happen in this country, no matter what a politician says. Two, reports of those threats have the same credibility as the claims of pet eating since both sets of allegations originated with residents of Springfield, not with Trump or Vance. Leftmedia types only believe one set of residents.

I’m not here to settle the question of whether the thousands of Haitian migrants Joe Biden’s administration helped make it to the small town of Springfield, Ohio, were, in fact, eating cats, dogs, or anything else. PolitiFact and other “fact-checkers” have certainly spilled enough digital ink on that question, though in the case of Snopes, the answer was … a totally wimpy “unfounded.” Besides, our Douglas Andrews aptly tackled the story back in September.

Nor am I here to justify Trump and Vance’s repeated claims, which were unquestionably inflammatory. Still, there are two important caveats. First, what they did with their claim was get people thinking about Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’s open border and its catastrophic effects around the country. As Trump put it, “The real threat is what’s happening at our border.” Second, they appealed to young people. While older Americans rolled their eyes at outlandish claims, younger people absorbed with social media found the story — and the ensuing flood of memes — delightfully entertaining, drawing them toward the Trump-Vance ticket.

Another point: The Biden-Harris open border creates resentment and division among people. American citizens don’t like seeing their towns overrun by a flood of illegal migrants who broke the law and who don’t speak the language or care about the culture and have little or no intention of doing so. Strong reactions, however ugly, happen because of crisis events. For all Democrats’ insistence on creating unity, they do anything and everything to divide us.

Now, at the top, I alluded to the fact that our team conferred on some other options for Lie of the Year. We think our list deserves some consideration.

• The border is under control. Biden and Harris repeated this egregious lie so often that even some Leftmedia outlets sometimes grudgingly admitted that maybe, perhaps, sorta kinda that wasn’t entirely true. Other times, the border crisis led the media to brazenly deny the fact that Harris was ever the border czar so as to absolve her of responsibility.

• Illegals commit crimes at lower rates than citizens. Leftists repeatedly asserted this line, though the only justification is that there is no database tying crime to legal status. See the related lie about Venezuelan gangs not taking over apartment complexes. See also the stories that made the broader crime lie obvious: the gruesome murders of Laken Riley and other women by illegal aliens.

• Biden would remain the Democrat nominee. He repeated this line for the first seven months of the year. Democrats insisted he was fit as a fiddle and mentally as sharp as a tack. The White House even told us he’s got so much energy that he “runs circles” around everyone. However, Mark Alexander predicted Biden wouldn’t be the nominee way back in October 2022. By late July of this year, Biden finally succumbed to the reality that he’s actually only as sharp as a marble.

• Harris was a well-qualified replacement nominee, chosen in a fully open and democratic process. In fact, Harris has never won a Democrat primary vote, which is a curious anomaly for the party hell-bent on staving off Trump’s “threat to democracy.” She was chosen in the proverbial smoke-filled back room, and Democrat voters were informed who they’d be choosing.

• Harris lost because of racism and sexism. Even before she lost because she was a terrible candidate, her team bullied and smeared anyone not voting for her as motivated by prejudice and misogyny despite having no evidence for this bigoted charge.

• Biden wouldn’t pardon his son. The president and his spokespeople repeatedly denied that Joe would pardon Hunter — or that he was even considering doing so. Then he did, and, thanks to reporting from NBC News, we know that he’d planned to do so the whole time. PolitiFact, for what it’s worth, dubbed the pardon not a lie but a “Full Flop.”

• Trump is a fascist, a Nazi, and Hitler. When Harris and her Leftmedia propagandists could see defeat coming, they made a big splash with the “Trump is a fascist” lie. They’ve done this to virtually every GOP presidential candidate since Barry Goldwater, but … they really meant it this time.

Briefly, many other lies deserve dishonorable mention: Trump would “ban abortion,” the Project 2025 smear, repetition of the bogus Charlottesville and “suckers and losers” tales complete with a new one about Arlington, Harris worked at McDonald’s, Tim Walz’s stolen valor, and Biden’s false claim that inflation was 9% when he took office. Even The Washington Post rebuked that one with four Pinocchios.

We could certainly go on, but you get the idea.

The real story? The Left has an entire party and media establishment arrayed against Liberty and Truth. They censor and “fact-check” any opposition. These people are dedicated to acquiring and wielding power, and no lie is too great when in service to their agenda.

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