PolitiFact Now Rating Claims That No One Ever Disputed to Make Republicans Look Bad
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
In an obvious partisan effort to hurt Republicans reinforce leftist media bias, PolitiFact is now rating claims that no one ever disputed – but only if it hurts Republicans.
“In December of 2017, the Prince William board of supervisors had a meeting … (Corey Stewart) skipped that meeting to go campaign in Alabama for Roy Moore to be a U.S. senator … You haven’t disavowed Roy Moore’s name yet,” said Sen. Tim Kaine during a debate with GOP challenger Corey Stewart on Saturday.
No one disputed this fact, but PolitiFact took it upon themselves to fact-check the claim as “True” anyway, highlighting a fact that could hurt Stewart. When asked if they would be fact-checking obviously-True statements that Stewart made during the debate against Kaine, PolitiFact predictably dodged the question.
“We rate claims that we think would cause the average person to say, ‘I wonder if that’s true,'” PolitiFact editor Angie Drobnic Holan told Big League Politics, smugly directing us to PolitiFact’s “guidelines” page.
As an example, Stewart asserted several times during the same debate Kaine flip-flopped on his stance on offshore drilling when it was politically expedient. As reported by Big League Politics , Stewart’s assertion was obviously true. In fact, PolitiFact itself even acknowledged the flip-flop in 2016 .
After Saturday’s debate, though, the average person might be wondering if that claim made by Stewart is true. Remember, that is supposedly one of PolitiFact’s criteria for fact-checking.
Holan – again, predictably – did not comment when asked specifically if readers could expect an article confirming Stewart’s claims about Kaine’s ever-changing position on offshore drilling as “True.”
Of course, whether a claim “would cause the average person to say, ‘I wonder if that’s true,'” is an entirely subjective assessment to be made by the PolitiFact staff, and that us just how they like it. It allows them to brush off claims that they do not want to “fact-check” (read: Democrat lies) by claiming that the average person would not wonder about the claim
The entire premise of fact-checking websites like PolitiFact is a joke. They are simply weaponized partisan attack machines designed to move the political needle towards the left.
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Politifact is as partisan as the op ed page of any newspaper.
It bears repeating that these so-called fact checkers are partisan. A lot of times they fact-check opinion and because they disagree with the opinion, they declare it "false." For example,
Donald Trump's questionable claim that Electoral College favors the Democrats
There are so many ways to quantify the word "favors" that it's ridiculous to even deal with the statement as factual. It's clearly an opinion and depending on what data you look to and how you weight it, you could either agree or disagree with the statement. Naturally, Politifact promoted their own analysis as the only factually accurate method that should be considered.
Another example was when they fact checked the statement,
Obviously "massive" is an imprecise adjective and as long we have any deficit at all with Japan (we do) then a person could have the opinion that it was massive. Fact checking this is silly and stupid. The only reason they do it is partisan politics. And what was Politifact's opinion on the deficit?
We're supposed to accept this as serious "fact-checking" journalism.
Other times, they are shockingly disingenuous. For example, in a meeting a few months ago, the subject of gangs generally and the MS-13 gang specifically was on the table and Trump called them "animals." The context was clear. He was talking about a vicious, evil gang. Nancy Pelosi then criticized Trump for his remark and said it was wrong to call people animals. Trump then said Pelosi had come out in support of MS-13. Politifact analyzed this statement and declared it "false."
Donald Trump's false claim that Nancy Pelosi 'came out in favor of MS-13'
Their reasoning was that Pelosi only talked about illegal immigrants and did not mention MS-13. But both Politifact and Pelosi knew full well that the context of Trump's animal remark was MS-13 and other gangs. Politifact begrudgingly admits it.
I say "begrudgingly" because Trump didn't just make the animals remark "after a sheriff spoke about 'bad guys.'" In fact, he was answering a direct question on the topic.
Because the context was so clear, it must be assumed that Pelosi was aware of it, but Politifact twisted themselves in knots defending Pelosi and wouldn't even give Trump a "half-true" on their rating. Additionally, they linked to a story about the media taking Trump's words out of context, but they didn't do a story on it themselves and assign a "false" rating as they easily could have - I assume because it would mess up their stats of having conservatives being bigger liars than liberals.
Sorry, Pelosi didnt come out in favor of MS-13 no matter how you slice it. Trump said she did. He's a liar.
Politifact nor Snopes is the only source for that.
Hell...you can't even show where they did admit it begrudgingly. Now your making shit up.
Such an ironic point...From Heartland.
So if someone lies and says something is massive when it is modest at best, that is not a lie? Someone could say look at that 2 ft deep hole. It is massive. I would and could say, no it is not. It is a modest hole.
You all are twisting and turning to find perceived bias.
With some people hell will freeze over before they believe anything other than their own rhetoric.
Including making blogs and so called alternative media that only exists to push their warped views.
The owners determine the editorial slant of the source, so they are most certainly relevant topics to be addressed.
I wouldn't worry about this either.
PolitiFact has also grudgingly admitted that Donald J. Trump or his campaign never stated that "Mexico will pay for the wall." PolitiFact also finally admitted that news releases from the Mexican Government clearly indicated that "Mexico will pay for the wall," and the Mexican Government are also in the process of instituting tax cuts to pay for it.
This is proof that PolitiFact more often than not chooses to portray Donald J. Trump in a less than glowing manner.