Were there real media reports about Senator Chuck Schumer getting $16 million from NASA through a New Jersey based shell company? No, that's not true: The absurd story involving "zero-gravity-compatible scones, Belgian waffles, and mini-muffins" originated on a site that is clearly labeled as satirical. It is run by a man known for tricking conservatives into liking and sharing made-up content.
The story appeared in an article (archived here) published by "The Dunning-Kruger Times" on February 238, 2025. It opened:
Washington, D.C. - In what experts are calling a bold new frontier in space exploration (and brunch), Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has successfully secured a $16 million grant from NASA to fund research into "zero-gravity-compatible scones, Belgian waffles, and mini-muffins."
Speaking to reporters outside a Capitol Hill café, Schumer defended the expenditure, calling it a "vital step in the future of American space travel."
"If we're going to colonize Mars, we can't have our astronauts floating around eating boring freeze-dried peas," Schumer declared, waving a buttered scone for emphasis. "We need flaky, intergalactic pastries to boost morale and keep our brave spacefarers energized."
The same story was later reposted in meme format (archived here) by a Facebook page named "America Love It Or Leave It" on May 1, 2025. This is what the meme looked like:
The Facebook page (archived here) where the meme appeared had a description that read:
A subsidiary of the America's Last Line of Defense network of trollery and propaganda for cash. Nothing on this page is real.
The Dunning-Kruger Times is a satirical website with an about page (archived here) that has following disclaimer:
About Us,
Dunning-Kruger-Times.com is a subsidiary of the 'America's Last Line of Defense' network of parody, satire, and tomfoolery, or as Snopes called it before they lost their war on satire: Junk News
About Satire
Before you complain and decide satire is synonymous with 'comedy':
sat·ire ˈsaˌtī(ə)r noun: The use of humor, irony, exaggeration, OR ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues.
Everything on this website is fiction. It is not a lie and it is not fake news because it is not real. If you believe that it is real, you should have your head examined. Any similarities between this site's pure fantasy and actual people, places, and events are purely coincidental and all images should be considered altered and satirical. See above if you're still having an issue with that satire thing.
The website is named after the Dunning-Kruger effect, a term from a psychology experiment that describes the phenomenon of being ignorant of one's own ignorance. (That experiment has been disputed by a math professor.)
Both the website and the Facebook page are run by self-described liberal troll Christopher Blair from Maine, who for years has run networks of websites set up to troll conservatives with made-up news items in order to get them to share his posts. He often goes by the nickname "Busta Troll." A 2018 BBC profile called Blair "the Godfather of fake news," describing him as "one of the world's most prolific writers of disinformation."
His websites usually have multiple satire disclaimers and the stories very often contain obvious hints they are not real, like category names indicating they are fiction, links to "sources" that instead go to funny or offensive images or an "S for Satire" logo added to the images used as illustration. Another telltale sign is the name "Art Tubolls" (anagram for "Busta Troll") for characters in the stories. Blair also frequently pays homage to two of his friends who passed away by using their names ("Joe Barron" and "Sandy Batt") in stories.
Blair's stories have been widely copied by spammy, foreign website networks trying to make a buck by spamming American conservatives with clickbait headlines.
Here you can find some of the many, many stories from Blair's websites Lead Stories debunked over the years.
