USA Today fact-checks clearly satirical Babylon Bee report that Biden sold Alaska to Russia

 Big Media just can't help themselves.

The scolds in the liberal press can't hide their disdain for popular satire site Babylon Bee. The site is funny, insightful, punchy, and can be cutting-edge. But the big problem, it seems, is that the Bee, which is conservative and Christian, is effective at driving home points using the power of satire.

So the media have gone on the attack. For example:

• The New York Times was forced to retract what the Bee called defamatory and misleading statements about the satirical site when the paper referred to the Bee as a "far-right misinformation site" that "sometimes trafficked in misinformation under the guise of satire."
• Snopes beclowned itself when it fact-checked a Bee satire piece that was clearly a joke to anyone who read it and had at least a room-temperature IQ, but the humorless Karens at Snopes couldn't help themselves.
• USA Today actually fact-checked a Bee piece that said the liberal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the death of late SCOTUS Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

And now USA Today, the nation's biggest newspaper, is at it again. On Tuesday, the paper posted a fact-check of the Bee's recent piece saying that President Joe Biden sold Alaska back to Russia.

In the satirical item, the Bee mocked Biden's refusal to drill in the U.S. (because he wants to satisfy the green agenda) but willingness to push Saudi Arabia and Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro to increase their oil output.

"The deliberate and premeditated invasion of Ukraine by brutal dictator Vladimir Putin has forced the US to reassess the importance of energy independence," the Bee wrote. "With this new resolve, the Biden Administration has taken its first step toward increasing oil production for Americans by selling Alaska back to Russia so we can start drilling for oil there again."

"Folks, nobody wants to ruin America’s beautiful Alaskan wilderness with oil trucks and drilling rigs, come on!" Biden said in a made-up quote by the Bee. "But I’ve never had a problem getting oil from Russia, so there you go, go get him."The "news" was clearly a joke — as anyone with any sense understood.

But USA Today wasn't sure people were smart enough to see through the Bee's nefarious "reporting."

So the paper ran a fact-check to make sure everybody understood: "There is no evidence Biden said he plans to sell Alaska."

Thankfully for all the rubes in America, the newspaper was able to determine that the Bee piece was satire.

"Based on our research, we rate SATIRE the claim that Biden plans to sell Alaska to Russia," USA Today ruled.

Oh, and if you're wondering, "Who pays for this nonsense?" the paper has this note at the bottom of the fact-check: "Our fact-check work is supported in part by a grant from Facebook."