February 9, 2022

"Did Biden Admin ‘Fund Crack Pipes’ To ‘Advance Racial Equity’?"

A question asked at Snopes and deemed "Mostly False."

Mostly false? Okay. What part of it isn't false?

In 2022, a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services substance abuse harm reduction grant did require recipients to provide safer smoking kits to existing drug users. In distributing grants, priority would be given to applicants serving historically underserved communities. However...

This was just one of around 20 components of the grant program and far from its most prominent or important one...

So it's "mostly false" because the program as a whole has 20 components and this is just one component, but isn't it still true that the Biden administration is funding crack pipes to advance racial equality? I've never noticed that putting something that's true on a list of other things made it "mostly false." 

But there's also the idea that the primary purpose of the program was to reduce physical harm from drug use — thus a "safe smoking kit" might include a rubber mouthpiece for a glass pipe. "Racial equity" came into play as applicants were required to make a “behavioral disparity impact statement" about the effect on “racial, ethnic, sexual, and gender minority groups.” And the HHS stated that it would “prioritize funding for programs which address the needs of underserved communities.”

"Mostly false" is a subjective categorization, but considering how much trouble people get for spreading misinformation these days, I think it's misinformation upon misinformation to jump on impish clickbait headlines like "Biden administration to fund handing out crack pipes to addicts to improve 'racial equity.'" 

That was the original headline at The Daily Mail, which has changed the headline to "Biden administration to fund programs that hand out crack pipes to prevent infection and promote 'racial equity'" (which is in The Daily Mail).

UPDATE: The Daily Mail headline has changed again. Now it's "Biden administration denies funding programs that hand out crack pipes to prevent infection and promote 'racial equity.'" And the Snopes page has been updated with the rating changed from "Mostly False" to "Outdated. That's because HHS "stipulated that federal funding would not be used to include pipes in safe smoking kits."

63 comments:

hawkeyedjb said...

"Snopes... deemed "Mostly False"

Ah. So it's true.

hawkeyedjb said...

By the way, “behavioral disparity impact statement" gives the game away. Such statements are like diversity statements, entirely subjective and used only for the purpose of ensuring that the favored applicant acquires the boodle in question.

wendybar said...

Who KNEW it was Hunter who was in charge of the White House??

Enigma said...

Consult the AllSides.com "fact check bias chart":

https://www.allsides.com/media-bias/fact-check-bias-chart

Snopes is rated lean left. Fact checking no longer applies to "facts" -- it now means "spin" and "political party threat" checking.

Achilles said...

Nobody reads Snopes to be informed.

It is merely a tool to push an agenda.

It has to be humiliating to be a leftist these days.

tim in vermont said...

"Mostly false" is a subjective categorization, "

Not even. It's a lie, the statement is true, but any measure. What does 'subjective' mean?

Subjective: Dependent on the mind or on an individual's perception for its existence.

If this is the standard of Snopes, they should no longer call themselves a "fact checker." But they would simply apply the same standard to their own ethics as they apply to their "fact chucking" and decide that it's all on the up and up. They will continue to call themselves "fact checkers" because that's what they need people to think for them to get their way.

wendybar said...

Why isn't Biden closing the border because the REAL problem is the Fentanyl that is coming in from the Mexican Border that he opened wide and they are coming with drugs that are going to kill our young people at an alarming rate. I guess he doesn't care?? It looks to me he is doing whatever he can to hasten the downfall of America. Obama was Correct. The Transformation of America began with him and will end with it falling under Biden.

BarrySanders20 said...

Don't know why, but "Crack Pipes 4 Equality" reminds me of "Bong Hits 4 Jesus"

Gabriel said...

"Mostly false", "half-true", "missing context", and "true but false" (a real fact-checker rating*) are for items that are true but imperil a favored narrative. My link, you note, is from ten years ago. I think people may be starting to catch on.

*We cannot fault the RNC’s math, as the numbers add up. But at this point this figure doesn’t mean very much. It may simply a function of a coincidence of timing — a brief blip that could have little to do with “Obama’s job market.”

If trends hold up over the next few months, then the RNC might have a better case. But at this point we will give this statistic our rarely used label:

TRUE BUT FALSE

Dave Begley said...

What about not using crack? What about not making it cheaper and easier to use crack?

Or is it the case, as a matter of racial equity (whatever that is) to fund crack pipes?

Wasn't Hunter Biden a big time crack user? He's White. Discrimination!!

Seriously, isn't it racist (and perhaps illegal) to assume that crack users are Black?

Dave Begley said...

I love how Althouse has called out and destroyed those libs at Snopes.

Anthony said...

Snopes isn't worth much when it comes to anything even vaguely political. That's been widely appreciated for a long time now.

Leland said...

Snopes = MiniTru
If not approved by MiniTru, then it is by default misinformation. It is the 1984 How to Guide.

Fernandinande said...

I don't think any of their pictures are of people smoking crack, it looks like pot or hash in a different kind of pipe. Same here.

IIRC, crack is smoked from pipes like this, and heated from outside, not from a direct flame.

Joe Smith said...

Just in time for Black History Month.

You can't make it up : )

Andrew said...

I really loved Snopes when it first came out. I used the site constantly. It was so disappointing to realize that the site was run by political hacks.

Static Ping said...

Forget it. It's Snopes.

These days, professional fact checkers are recruited from political partisans, know-nothings, and the delusional, often checking two or three of those boxes. There's no particular reason to trust Snopes or, for that matter, anyone who trusts Snopes. The thing is was always like this, except there was some self-respect still present plus a real fear of losing all credibility if they lied in creative ways. A lot of masks have fallen off thank to Trump.

Yancey Ward said...

In other words, mostly true.

Gunner said...

I am pretty sure President Trump never said the purpose of any of his programs was to "be racist", yet that is what millions upon millions of misinformation media people said his purpose was.

Ceciliahere said...

Snopes is mostly false.

gilbar said...

So it's "mostly false" because the program as a whole has 20 components and this is just one component,

So; not that gilbar would do this, but ...
If someone (not gilbar!) gives candy to 20 coeds, and rapes and kills, and eats 2 of them...
Is it "mostly false" that this someone (not gilbar!!) cannibalizes coeds?

ga6 said...

As some on another site noted: "from free cell phone to free crack pipes in ten years".

I would add "free lunch, free breakfast, and free shoot up sites in ten years"

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

hunter... has influence. crack pipes, baby.

Iman said...

The daft bigotry of blow expectations?

gilbar said...

Crack used to be a "black people's thing"
Hunter Biden has been doing EVERYTHING in his power to 'Advance Racial Equity'

Two-eyed Jack said...

So, is stating that the claim about crack pipes promoting racial equity is "mostly false" a white lie?

Kevin said...

"Biden administration to fund programs that hand out crack pipes to prevent infection and promote 'racial equity'"

There is no limit to what can be done in the name of promoting racial equity.

Neither elections nor the Constitution shall stand in their way.

rehajm said...

Like ‘Mostly False’, apparently ‘misinformation’ is a subjective categorization. By my read if the Biden administration funded a program that handed out crack pipes, the Biden administration handed out crack pipes.

I won’t hold my breath waiting for this cruelly neutral blog to call misinformation on misinformation next time it reports impish clickbait headlines favoring the left.

Levi Starks said...

Should have been rated “sends a message not favorable to the current Democratic resident of the White House”

Fernandinande said...

underserved communities

Those are the communities which are actually "served" more than others: police, free medical care, subsidized housing and schools, etc.

Jupiter said...

It's Snopes, for Christ's sake. What did you expect? Might as well be WaPo.

who-knew said...

More evidence that the so-called fact checkers in the MSM are just Democratic party and government mouthpieces. Personally I gave up on them when they claimed Romney was wrong to say that we had the smallest Navy since 1917. They actually included the numbers proving him correct but decided it was false because modern ships are more powerful than older ones. While that makes for an argument that it doesn't matter that the Navy is smaller, it was still true that the Navy was smaller.

Ignorance is Bliss said...

In an effort to promote racial equity, the Biden administration will be handing out crack pipes to white neighborhoods. Asians attending elite high schools will be given both the pipes and the crack.

madAsHell said...

Snopes???

Less credibility that CNN.

Snopes is a bad Seinfeld episode for people that want to believe.

Joe Smith said...

At least it's not a waste of money.

Joe just cleaned out his Delaware garage and found a bunch of Hunter's old pipes.

So calm down.

effinayright said...

“behavioral disparity impact statement"
***********

IOW "White privilege made me the addled crackhead that I am. I blame The Man."

Pathetic.

Amy said...

I just saw a video clip from Jen Psaki saying that there were never pipes in the kits at all, that it was all misinformation. Lots of scrambling and spinning going on about this. Yet another embarrassment.

Tomcc said...

I'm chewing on this statement: ...applicants were required to make a “behavioral disparity impact statement" about the effect on “racial, ethnic, sexual, and gender minority groups.”
Other than full employment for sociology majors, I'm not sure I understand the requirement. If you apply for funding, you have to make a statement about what, exactly? Most people on drugs experience disparate impacts.

Howard said...

We have Ronald Reagan to thank for the crack epidemic.

farmgirl said...

Subjective = Relative.
Relativism = Objectivism

https://www.coursera.org/lecture/philosophy/objectivism-relativism-and-emotivism-mDfKf

Fernandinande said...

effinayright said...
“behavioral disparity impact statement"


I googled that phrase and the first hit was the item under discussion (pretty sure):

"Department of Health and Human Services
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration
FY 2022 Harm Reduction Program Grant"
75 pages.

I wrote: IIRC, crack is smoked from pipes like this,

Yes, I smoked crack a few times with some other guys who smoked it regularly, but, like most people, I didn't like it. It seems to appeal to the same people who might huff gasoline or paint fumes.

cubanbob said...

What the hell is wrong with these people? Might as well give top shelf booze to alcoholics. Defund the police, decriminalize petty theft, indoctrinate the youth in Marxist garbage, tax the upper middle class to death, screw the working class and bankrupt the nation with insane spending on even more insane eco and social nonsense and making us all beggars to more easily control for our "good". This is the Democratic Party today at all levels. I'm astonished that anyone who isn't a grifter or is a direct beneficiary of corporatism votes for this.

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

"fact checker" is a leftist word used by leftists to force non-leftist views into the dark.

mezzrow said...

Does anyone think this can go on forever?
The Biden mess is a sandcastle trying to talk the tides out of coming in.

tim in vermont said...

They use Snopes to block news stories, what matters is the ruling, not the rationalization, which few will read. This "fact chuck" will provide the pretext for Facebook and Twitter to censor the story, people affected by the "ruling" will not even be aware of it, they will just be denied the news story. It's all to keep from hurting Biden's approval even further. This story has come out *after* his RCP *average* approval dropped into the frigid thirties. So I am thinking it's not even working. Winston Smith worked at Snopes in 1984, they just called it something different.

https://mobile.twitter.com/ByronYork/status/1491427997290799106

Bwaa ha ha ha ha! If the press had been allowed to do its job when the laptop first came to light, Biden would never have. gotten the nomination and some other Democrat would be president now. This is why suppressing the news is a bad thing.

Greg The Class Traitor said...

Thank you for this fine example of why the "fact checkers" are all worthless left wing piles of sh!t.

Ironclad said...

BTW - the Snopes rating is now "Outdated", after the barrage of ridicule they received.

The whole thing comes down to a simple analogy - how many alcoholics were "helped" by setting up a "safe space" bar to satisfy their urges. This is about as insane as it gets and just prolongs people's dependency on drugs. (and doesn't address the real villain that kills the most - Chinese supplied fentanyl)

Jersey Fled said...

Snopes is where Lefties go to find a pretense to believe what they hope is true.

Temujin said...

So if it's mostly false because there are a few items true in it, but most of the rest either did not apply or was false, I guess you could also consider Snopes mostly false.

And the New York Times.
Wapo, NBC, CBS, CNN, ABC, NPR, LA Times, and and on and on.

I especially like the part where "applicants were required to make a “behavioral disparity impact statement" about the effect on “racial, ethnic, sexual, and gender minority groups.”" So our Government requires people to display their victimhood, and if they had not thought of themselves as victims, to get with it and begin thinking that way.

The US Government used to encourage people to be the best they can be. Now? Both our schools and our government (run by the same people) teach everyone that they are victims and there is one group of people to blame for their bad luck. Guess who?

I could not think less of our Government than I do these days.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

and Kamala is a little bit pregnant 😉

RMc said...

Is President Biden actually running the country?

"Mostly false."

tim in vermont said...

"We have Ronald Reagan to thank for the crack epidemic."

We have Democrats to blame for leaving the Mexican border wide open allowing the unrestricted smuggling of fentanyl into our country and causing tens of thousands of overdose deaths annually, and all the while the Democrats were deliberately mixing the numbers in with other overdose deaths as a way to avoid looking at the problem, and as a cudgel to beat up big Pharma.

Well now, they have gotten their bribes from Big Pharma, and they have finally consented to unmix the numbers to show that it wasn't prescribed pain-killers causing the deaths, but illegal ChiCom fentanyl, but they have not come to terms with the fact that Trump's wall was the best approach to reducing the flow, that and playing hardball with China, which is replaying tactics used against the Central Empire (it's not the "Middle Kingdom") by the British in the Opium Wars, against us.

hawkeyedjb said...

"We have Ronald Reagan to thank for the crack epidemic."

Forty years on, still haven't found anyone else to blame. Hunter Biden sends his thanks to President Reagan.

BarrySanders20 said...

So no actual pipes in the kits now? Look for a voucher for a free pipe in the kits instead.

With Obama it was Obamaphones. With Biden it's Bidenpipes. Ol' Crackpipe Joe is going to be sure that his buddy CornPop gets the free Bidenpipe.

BarrySanders20 said...

Or maybe there will be pipes but just not federally funded pipes. Some private crackpipe donor will buy the pipes and put them in the box. Leaves room for graft in the requisitioning of crackpipes. What's not to love? Hunter can get fat on that.

Leora said...

cubanbob - that's the trick- no one votes for this. They vote to spend money to reduce the impact of drugs. Then some addlepated grievance studies major writes the rule book on how the money will be distributed to the Democratic leaning NGO complex to provide salaries for leftist foot soldiers and purchase orders for leftist businesses and incidentally to provide press releases and photo ops showing something is being done. Since the folks writing the rules live in a weird lefty bubble, they don't do things that normal people might do with the money like shutting down crack houses or assisting victims of human trafficking or controlling the import of illegal substances through our borders.

Greg The Class Traitor said...

Howard said...
We have Ronald Reagan to thank for the crack epidemic.

Because it Howard's world, things are never teh responsibility of the people who are doing them, they're always the fault of whatever GOP politician he thinks in his deranged little mind that he can blame it on

Bender said...

Meanwhile, in D.C. and Maryland and elsewhere, they ARE pushing programs to support and subsidize Black entrepreneurs specifically to be drug dealers, namely of marijuana. And there is legislation to decriminalize small amounts of other drugs, including cocaine and heroin and meth, on racial equity grounds.

Bunkypotatohead said...

They're gonna require proof of covid vaccination in order to get the free pipe, so it's all good.

But when am I getting free martini glasses?

gadfly said...

So when did Snopes ever get anything exactly right? Other true-false websites aren't much better.

So how do I apply for crackpipe? Isn't that the real question that needs to be answered? And as Woodward and Bernstein would have immediately recognized, the story here is to discover who put the crackpipe into the giveaway list in the first place.

tim in vermont said...

"the story here is to discover who put the crackpipe into the giveaway list in the first place."

Your beloved Biden administration. Or are you suggesting it was a "false flag" operation to make Biden look bad?

Butkus51 said...

Id say , but weve always been at war with Oceania, but it got old about 20 years ago.

Greg The Class Traitor said...

gadfly said...
the story here is to discover who put the crackpipe into the giveaway list in the first place.

No, the big story is who are all the people who saw the crack pipe on the list, but didn't complain