What is this Politifact?

[Rob's House]

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/

 

I see these posted periodically by various publications and every time I read the analysis it seems they use twists of word and logic, that would make John Roberts envious, to arrive at the meter reading they want. I'm sure you can guess which way it slants.

[Rob's House]

This is a great example of Politifact unintentionally outing itself

 

http://www.politifact.com/virginia/statements/2012/aug/13/bob-mcdonnell/bob-mcdonnell-says-obama-unwinding-welfare-work-re/

 

"By unwinding our nation’s welfare-to-work requirements, the Obama administration is making a tragic mistake," McDonnell wrote in an August 6 op-ed that ran in the Richmond Times-Dispatch and is posted on McDonnell’s political website and Romney’s campaign website.

 

...

 

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced the waiver program on July 12, saying exemptions would be granted to allow states to "test alternative and innovative strategies, policies and procedures that are designed to improve employment outcomes for needy families."

 

The directive said "HHS will only consider approving waivers relating to the work participation requirements that make changes intended to lead to more effective means of meeting the work goals of TANF." The department said if a test project does not result in improved employment for welfare recipients, the waiver could be revoked.

 

...

 

It should be noted that the Republican governors of Utah and Nevada have expressed interest in obtaining waivers from TANF requirements in order to boost employment for welfare recipients.

 

...

 

But a new Obama program does not end welfare-to-work mandates. To the contrary, it strengthens the requirements by granting waivers to states seeking to make the work requirements more successful. The waivers would be granted to pilot programs that are individually evaluated; HHS is not proposing a blanket national change to welfare law.

 

We rate McDonnell’s statement False.

 

So in short, it's true that the waiver system does unwind the work requirements, but it's for a good cause (flexibility), the people granting the waivers could choose not to grant the waivers, Obama says it won't, and some Republicans want it; therefore it's false.

 

Interesting how they breezed over the real question of accuracy which is the legality of these waivers under the law. Curiously we didn't need a fact check on that one.

 

This **** might as well be put out by the Daily Kos.

[3rdnlng]

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/

 

I see these posted periodically by various publications and every time I read the analysis it seems they use twists of word and logic, that would make John Roberts envious, to arrive at the meter reading they want. I'm sure you can guess which way it slants.

 

Maybe we should make a list of news/opinion sources and which way they lean, whether it be left, right or pretty much neutral. Everyone knows that Drudge leans right and Huffington Post leans left but there are some more obscure sources that I've found are sneaky. I've gotten mostly through an article thinking they were making sense but with a gnawing feeling that something wasn't right. After going back and reading their basic premise over I found where they very cleverly turned conjecture into fact. It would be interesting to see how some people view different sites/sources.

[Rob's House]

As I was being reminded why I haven't been following the news much lately I stumbled across another warm steaming pile smeared across the pages of my local paper by the wonderfully "non-partisan" "fact" checkers at Politifact.

 

The basic gist of this one is that Ken Cuccinelli said Mark Warner cast the deciding vote to pass Obamacare. Although this is absolutely true in practical terms, the slimy little sh!ts split hairs to coax their meter to a mostly false reading. You can read for youself what these dipshits wrote.

 

Our ruling

Cuccinelli said Warner provided "the tiebreaking vote" that allowed Obamacare to become reality. There’s a sliver of truth here in that Warner did indeed provide a crucial vote that helped Democrats get to the 60 votes needed to advance the Affordable Care Act.

But it’s misleading to say he cast "the vote" when Warner was joined by 59 other senators who, by Cuccinelli’s rationale, also would have cast the tie-breaking vote. Warner was not among the last holdouts that boosted the Senate to a super majority; he made his intentions known three months before the vote.

We rate the claim Mostly False.

 

This is what passes as "non-partisan" these days.

[Magox]

This is a great example of Politifact unintentionally outing itself

 

http://www.politifac...elfare-work-re/

 

 

 

So in short, it's true that the waiver system does unwind the work requirements, but it's for a good cause (flexibility), the people granting the waivers could choose not to grant the waivers, Obama says it won't, and some Republicans want it; therefore it's false.

 

Interesting how they breezed over the real question of accuracy which is the legality of these waivers under the law. Curiously we didn't need a fact check on that one.

 

This **** might as well be put out by the Daily Kos.

 

You think that's bad:

 

 

 

 

On December 12, the self-appointed guardians of truth and justice at PolitiFact named President Obama’s infamous promise—that “if you like yourhealth care plan, you can keep it”—its 2013 “Lie of the Year.” An understandable choice. But in its article detailing why the President’s promise was a lie, PolitiFact neglected to mention an essential detail. In 2008, at a critical point in the presidential campaign, PolitiFact rated the “keep your plan” promise as “True.” The whole episode, and PolitiFact’s misleading behavior throughout, tells us a lot about the troubled state of “fact-checking” journalism.

On October 9, 2008, Angie Drobnic Holan of PolitiFact published an articleusing the site’s “Truth-O-Meter” to evaluate this claim: “Under Barack Obama’s health care proposal, ‘if you’ve got a health care plan that you like, you can keep it.’” The article assures us in its headline that “Obama’s plan expands [the] existing system,” and continues that “Obama is accurately describing his health care plan here…It remains to be seen whether Obama’s plan will actually be able to achieve the cost savings it promises for the health care system. But people who want to keep their current insurance should be able to do that under Obama’s plan. His description of his plan is accurate, and we rate his statement True.”

The 2008 Obama plan, among other things, sought to transform theindividual insurance market; it proposed to bar insurers from charging different premiums to the healthy and the sick, and to require them to offer plans to all comers, regardless of prior health status. According to PolitiFact, however, there was no need to worry that these provisions would be disruptive to existinghealth plans.

As per PolitiFact’s usual M.O., Holan didn’t seek out any skeptical health-policy experts to suss out the veracity of Senator Obama’s signature claim. Instead, its sources included Jonathan Cohn, a passionate Obamacare supporter at The New Republic, and various interviews and statements of Mr. Obama. Holan simply took the “keep your plan” promise at face value, dismissing as dishonest anyone who dared suggest that Obama’s claim would be impossible to keep. “His opponents have attacked his plan as ‘government-run’ health care,” she wrote, the scare-quotes around “government-run” being visible to all.

 

http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2013/12/27/in-2008-politifacts-2013-lie-of-the-year-that-you-could-keep-your-health-plan-under-obamacare-it-rated-true/

 

 

So they sought out Jonathan Cohn to clarify their 2008 decision? Jonathan Cohn????? That dude is a hack from the left and has been a staunch Obama apologist ever since I've occasionally been reading his drivel. The fact that they use a hack like Cohn says everything that I needed to know about Politifact.

 

Also, one other point. As much as I now truly dislike Sarah Palin, her quote about the "Death Panels", in which Politifact ruled the lie of the year in 2009 (I believe), to a certain extent will end up being proven correct.

[Rob's House]

You think that's bad:

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.forbes.co...-it-rated-true/

 

 

So they sought out Jonathan Cohn to clarify their 2008 decision? Jonathan Cohn????? That dude is a hack from the left and has been a staunch Obama apologist ever since I've occasionally been reading his drivel. The fact that they use a hack like Cohn says everything that I needed to know about Politifact.

 

Also, one other point. As much as I now truly dislike Sarah Palin, her quote about the "Death Panels", in which Politifact ruled the lie of the year in 2009 (I believe), to a certain extent will end up being proven correct.

 

Damn. That's pretty bad. I pulled up another one of their "rulings" just for ***** and giggles and I found this

 

http://www.politifact.com/virginia/statements/2013/nov/01/ken-cuccinelli/cuccinelli-says-mcauliffe-wants-raise-average-fami/

 

It basically says that Cuccinelli's statment that funding all of McAuliffe's promises would cost the average family $1700/yr is false b/c it assumes that McAuliffe actually meant it when he made the promises and it assumes he wouldn't find that money somewhere else. And for that it's ruled straight up false. Looking back over their site it's clear to me that they were nothing short of a campaign PAC for McAuliffe in VA's gubernatorial election.