Politifraud stepped in it again this week when it decided to intent-check a statement made by Florida Sen. Marco Rubio during the GOP response to President Obama’s State of the Union speech. The statement Politifraud wanted to check was this: "Tonight, he even criticized us for refusing to raise taxes to delay military cuts – […]
In tonight’s debate, Mitt Romney made a claim that’s been a GOP talking point for nearly a year: “Oil production is down 14 percent this year on federal land.” As is typical, this is a completely true statement. Politifraud gives you the numbers in its very fact check. But as is typical for opinion journalists, […]
As I was writing last night’s critique of Politifraud’s sorry ruling on whether the U.S. tax codes contains incentives for businesses to move jobs overseas I noted that there were a few people who were listed as having been interviewed in right hand column that were nevertheless not quoted in Politifraud’s main analysis. The very […]
Pulitzer Prize-winning embarrassment Politifact decided to wade into the deep water by analyzing President Obama’s claim that the federal tax code has “loopholes that are giving incentives for companies that are shipping jobs overseas.” It’s another classic bit of analysis where Politifraud reaches far and wide to expand the claim in question so that they […]
National Review in an unsigned editorial posted today lays out yet more reasons why the self-appointed watchdogs at Politifact can’t be trusted. I encourage you to read the whole thing, but there’s one part I want to highlight and then elaborate on. PolitiFact’s other arguments are that Medicare spending will continue to rise and that […]
Sadly, the longer I’ve been out of journalism, the more my respect for journalists wanes. When I was sitting in a newsroom 5 days a week, I saw the work they produced was not always fair; it was not always complete; it was not always accurate. But at the same time, I interacted with those […]
The left-wing Tax Policy Center and Obama’s sycophantic media (and Politifraud which rates it “Mostly True”) have joined up to look at the broad outlines and principles of Mitt Romney’s tax plan and decided that Republicans plan to raise taxes on the middle class while cutting them for the wealthy. The Wall Street journal has […]
Politifraud did it again this week. Americans for Tax Reform came out with a press release linked to the Olympic fever pointing out that for those athletes that find themselves in to top tax bracket this year, each gold medal will cost them up to $9,000 in taxes. Note the “up to” and “top tax […]
The hits just keep on coming. First, somebody at Politifact just learned a new word after reading Mark Twain’s autobiography. In his 1906 autobiography Mark Twain wrote "figures often beguile me" in describing their persuasive ability to mislead. John Robitaille, a 2010 Republican candidate for governor in Rhode Island, cited a beguiling statistic when he […]
Over at Sublime Bloviations, they've taken Politifact to the woodshed once again over a “Half-True” claim by President Obama that “Romney outsourced call center jobs to India.” I’ll summarize the situation for you. Back in 2004, when Romney was governor of Massachusetts, the legislature sent him a bill that contained a provision banning state contractors […]