Politi-Score: 2011 First Quarter Preview

Although I've not completed the total counts of the rulings, I'd say at this point I have over 98% of them, enough to publish some preliminary charts.  

The total PolitiFact rulings from January 1 through March 31, 2011, will come to about 480, unless there's some over-production today (March 31) it might get to 500.  About 110 of the rulings came from PolitiFact National.  The preliminary breakdown by ruling is as follows, with the dashed line indicating all rulings with data labels to make it more comparable to the blue "Democrat" ruling line and the red "Republican" ruling line.  I don't expect it will change much from this come April 1. 



The Politi-Score is running 54 for the Democrats and 42 for the Republicans overall for office-holders only (to coincide with Eric Ostermeier's study, although both these charts reflect the total of rulings of PolitiFact National plus the affiliated states).  It appears from the chart above that there was a very wide divergence in the "Mostly True" category with Democrats having twice the percentage of rulings compared to the Republicans.

Another comparison many are interested in is how the averages look in relation to the 2010 Campaign cycle.  Indeed, the truth gets a beating when it's election time:

Grading PolitiFact *Liberal*-Style: Wage Deductions Go Nuclear

If you’re trying to get a handle on how PolitiFact (PF) does “numbers”, here’s one that may support the contention by some that PolitiFact does not apply consistent standards in its rulings. I’ve noted before that I don’t prefer comparing rulings because there’s always an “apples to oranges” factor somewhere. This comparison of two recent PF rulings may have enough "equivalencies", however, as I will show.

Two MSNBC liberals are the subject of this post: Lawrence O’Donnell, who has taken the place of Keith Olbermann, and Ed Schultz of “The Ed Show.” PolitiFact ruled “True” on a statement by O’Donnell that “Most Americans live within 50 miles of a nuclear power plant.” PolitiFact Wisconsin ruled “False” on a statement by Schultz that “Under changes being debated, state employees in Wisconsin "who earn $30,000, $40,000, $50,000 a year might have 20 percent of their income just disappear overnight."

What should be noted first off is that O’Donnell qualified his statement with the word “most” (--Americans live close to a nuclear power plant) and Schultz qualified his statement with the word “might” (--have 20% of their pay disappear).

How Dummies Beef Up Their Foreign Relations Credentials

Featuring Sarah Palin looking like a schmuck.

Sidebar: How scarey is Perry-Care?

Previously I put together this chart comparing the ten healthiest with the ten unhealthiest states, which I think will be not only expanded upon, but referenced many more times, because it clearly shows there's a strong correlation between good health and having healthcare: 

Texas has one of the highest rates of obesity, giving new meaning to everything being bigger in Texas.

Now that it’s been found that Texas is one of the fattest, most diabetic and unhealthiest states in the union (see above), as well as having the highest percentage of citizens without health insurance, PolitiFact found Texas Governor Rick Perry might not even know this (or is denying it) in this Pants on Fire ruling from January:

It's no secret that Texas Gov. Rick Perry thinks states can do some things better than the federal government, including coordinating health care for its poorest residents.

In a Dec. 19 interview with Kathleen McKinley, whose blog appears on the Houston Chronicle's website, Perry said the state has good ideas for delivering care effectively. As an example, he pointed to a proposal that Texas submitted to the federal government with the goal of reducing the number of uninsured residents by "restructuring federal Medicaid funding." Medicaid uses federal and state funding to provide health insurance to low-income Americans.

…We confirmed that Texas had sought permission from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in April 2008 to redirect Medicaid hospital funds into a state pool intended to help some low-income Texans get private insurance. However, in August 2008, during George W. Bush's presidency, an official with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which is part of the federal health agency, sent a letter to the Texas Health and Human Services Commission stating that "a number of areas under this proposal have been identified as problematic" — making it impossible for the federal agency to approve the proposal as written.”

Maybe it should be called “Perry-Care”? Yep, states like Texas sure can do some things better, and economist Paul Krugman is here to explain (and PolitiFact to verify):

Lil White Lies: How Glow Can You Go

I have written before about that “cheap Chinese Food” feeling I get from Bryan White’s reasoning when he blogs criticisms of PolitiFact’s rulings, or his Facebook commentary: It seems tasty and filling at the time, but a short time later one is hungry and has a headache from all the MSG. In other words, it sounds good, but later you say to yourself, after thinking about it…"Hey, wait a minute….that isn’t quite right…” and you're feeling a bit empty and kind of sick (and not from radiation).

Initially, I concurred a bit with  his recent criticism of a PolitiFact (PF) ruling on Ann Coulter, who said that “There is a growing body of evidence that radiation in excess of what the government says are the minimum amounts you should be exposed to are actually good for you and reduce cases of cancer.” He explained in a rhetorical mish-mash that PF missed the context of Coulter’s remark and replaced it with its own:

In context, Coulter was making the point that the media are passing on a classic "man bites dog" story. In other words she's making a point about media coverage of Japanese radiation leaks rather than jumping on a pseudoscientific bandwagon. Coulter tried to emphasize the same point on O'Reilly's program but ended up having to instead deal with the host's skepticism about the evidence.

He made it more clear on Facebook under the topic of Coulter’s statement at the PolitiFact page, when he was able to suck one Jason Curtis into his relentless debate machine:

Contrary to PolitiFact's stated principles, Coulter's point was ignored. She was making the point that the media was helping fan concerns about mildly heightened levels of radiation. That was overwhelmingly the point of the column she wrote, the one that O'Reilly had her on his program to discuss. O'Reilly introduces Coulter by saying she's "not down on radiation poisoning." And Coulter responds with "It's not me (...)".

Later he added, in the same vein:

…Coulter was trying to counteract media scare tactics. And it was improper to omit that point from the story.

When I first heard about the situation with the Japanese nuclear reactors on television, I also heard that there was no radiation threat to the United States, including Hawaii. In fact, it seemed to me it was being played down. From “mainstream media” ABC News:

Anchors A-Weigh: May the Politi-Farce be with You

Don't let yourself get dragged to
the bottom with Anchor Rising.

Add another PolitiFact Detractor to the growing list: a website called Anchors Rising featuring mainly two writers, Justin Katz and Monique Chartier, claiming a similar “liberal” selection bias, this time by Projo PolitiFact Rhode Island. While Weston Hicks calls it Politi-Hack Trackers at PolitiFact Texas, they call it Politi-Farce. But this one has a little more standing in that it not only seems on its face quite professional, lauds PolitiFact Bias as a “much needed site” but it includes commentary from one politico who has been (more than once) subjected to the PolitiFact Truthometer: Republican John Loughlin, “who ran an unsuccessful 2010 campaign for Congress in Rhode Island's 1st District.”

Politi-Farcer Chartier proudly displays the text of Loughlin’s seething commentary:

Politi-Fact has no credibility with me what so ever. On July 20, 2010, I was given a "pants-on-fire liar" rating for relaying the information given to me by Arizona law enforcement that those being human trafficked across the US / Mexico board are often force to carry narcotics as a price of passage. It is extremely difficult to prove this, however this is what I was told by law enforcement on the ground in Arizona (Governor Jan Brewer said the same thing). Subsequent to piece's publication it was reported in the same Providence Journal that 72 Guatemalans were gunned down by the cartels for refusing to carry the drugs. Then the Interior Minister of Mexico made a speech outlining that the human traffickers were being forced to carry drugs. I presented all of this exculpatory evidence to Politi-Fact and was told "well, we already covered that story so we don't want to go back and re-hash it." These low-lifes called me a liar and didn't have the guts to go back and correct their error. I can only conclude it was because Politi-Fact is agenda driven journalism at its very worst.

Chartier wrote with disdain that this indicated PolitiFact’s “ inability to correct a rating when indisputable evidence emerges that it was wrong.” In other words, he asserted he had refuting evidence…. which was anecdotal in character only. Chartier asserted PolitiFact’s ruling was wrong regardless, and said little else to explain why Loughlin’s comment made it true, or citing the information that supported Loughlin’s comments.

How Dummies Prepare To Shut Down Government

This is one of the best ones yet, featuring Michele Bachmann on how $105 billion has been hidden in Obamacare, to the tune of Beethoven's Fifth.

Sidebar: TIN-flation

Recently Rick Snyder, the newly elected “One Tough Nerd” governor of Michigan, put forward his proposals to get the state out of its huge fiscal deficit: one of them was to no longer exempt pensions from the state income tax. Apparently this would bring revenues of roughly $900 million for the state.

At first, the thought that retired hardcore Republican Michigan residents (like Rich Peasel, and other retirees I know) would now have to pay this tax made me smugly smile and giggle with vengeful pleasure. Rich has gone silent lately with his Flint Journal journalistic career: maybe because he knows he might see a comment from me that says “Hey Rich—how’s that voting for Rick Snyder workin’ out for ya?” But eventually, the tax implications also came home to roost for me as well, when I sat down with a calculator to determine their impact.

Michigan has a lot of auto company retirees and public employees with pretty sizable defined benefit pensions. So it made sense in that regard. On the other hand, the pensions are fixed incomes: for most retirees, it’s a zero sum game. If you’re working, you might be able to make up for the income lost by a new tax by working harder, by getting another job, by getting a raise or bonus. But if you are elderly and not able to work (especially in this economic climate), you have to take from something else in your budget to pay the tax. So it means that $900 million will come out of the Michigan economy somewhere because consumption will be reduced.

But there’s another factor at play for me, and I call it TIN-flation: it’s the combination of TAXES and INSURANCE. Inflation has been relatively benign since the 1970’s: and as a consumer, we have some degree of control over it. It was not a huge concern for me when I retired in 2008, I had some strategy for contending with it. But taxes and insurance have already eaten away, by my estimation, almost 10% of my income. And both are something over which I have NO control, except perhaps with the income tax proposal by Governor Snyder.

Tchotchkes: Irish I didn't, but I just had to!

Bryan White celebrates St. Patrick's Day.

Sidebar: Oh No! There goes Tokyo! It's BP-Zilla

History has repeated itself in Japan, just within one year. At first there was an explosion (the tsunami) and then there was an oil leak (radiation) which turned into a full grown spill disaster ( nuclear reactor meltdown and severe radiation). But most of all, most of all there was the cover-up.

The Japanese government has had problems because it could only get superficial, vaguely incomplete information from the company that owns the reactors.   Sound familiar?

 Well they had those 13 back up pumps—which one would think the Japanese should have known would all fail if there was a serious tsunami.

Last night I heard CNN reporters repeat the official line that the tsunami disabled the pumps needed to cool the reactors, implying that water unexpectedly got into the diesel generators that run the pumps.

These safety back-up systems are the 'EDGs' in nuke-speak: Emergency Diesel Generators. That they didn't work in an emergency is like a fire department telling us they couldn't save a building because "it was on fire."

AND that reminds me of those BP emergency shut-off valves, which weren't invested in because of the expense.   What can I say:  it's not just in America.

Postscript:  Just saw a great commentary at Bartcop's website:  "Nobody believes that all the backup systems failed....They gambled, like BP in the Gulf, and they got caught."    You can say that again, Bart.

Lil White Lies: More and Moore

During my working years, I had the unfortunate experience of going through recurring layoffs at my place of employment. Fortunately my salaried position spared me, but it was frightening to me nonetheless. Eventually I tried to take a positive view of them: when the papers would say the workforce was going to be reduced 20%, for example, I’d say to myself, well look at it this way, 80% are still working. This particular ruling by PolitiFact (PF) along with a blog post critical of it, reminds me, in a way, of that “80% positive.”

Michael Moore, self-avowed liberal activist and champion of the working class, recently went to Madison, Wisconsin to cheer on the Wisconsin public union members and teachers who protested their governor’s approach to solving a budget crisis by essentially taking away their collective bargaining rights (along with some other cuts), perhaps a move not so much to alleviate the budget but to eviscerate the unions.

PolitiFact Wisconsin pronounced as "True" the claim of Michael Moore, who stated quite plainly “Today just 400 Americans have the same wealth as half of all Americans combined.” My conservative counter part’s criticism is that Moore was not specific by saying “Today just 400 Americans have the same wealth as half of all Americans combined who are at the bottom of wealth distribution.” Somehow PolitiFact Wisconsin’s writers were at fault for not paying close enough attention to the specific wording of the claim. Not only that, they failed to consider the underlying message of how our country is “awash in wealth”…which, as he supposedly points out, appears to contradict Bill Adair’s claimed method for evaluating statements subject to PolitiFact’s Truth-o-meter.

Let’s first look at the chain of events in relation to this statement. Moore made the statement in Madison on March 5; he published his statement March 7 on his website. PolitiFact Wisconsin did not publish its ruling until March 10.

On March 5, the day of his speech in Madison, we get this description of it from a publication called the Daily Page:

…Moore talked about the nation's growing economic disparities, saying the total amount of wealth held by the nation's 400 richest individuals is equal to the assets of 155 million Americans on the other end of the spectrum.

Apparently this writer knew that Moore meant “the other end of the spectrum” economically when he talked about the 155 million people.

Lil White Lies: Dodging Magic Bullets

It’s been a while since I’ve taken a look at my conservative blogging counterpart’s Bashing Blumner series: he’s only done a few posts on her, because PolitiFact has been keeping him pretty busy. This recent post takes the St. Petersburg Times columnist to task for her seemingly poor reasoning with regard to the high costs of health care. And he may be right: but she has a very good point too.

In a column dated March 4, Robyn Blumner derided the Republicans' favorite method of reducing the high cost of health care, to wit, “tort reform is the magic bullet to cost containment…” Bryan White responds to that with “Blumner apparently thought it unnecessary to provide any example of the type of advocacy with which she charges Republicans.”

So, I’ll do Blumner a favor: straight from GOP.gov are here described  the first three “steps” of their “approach to health care reform” in a PDF document entitled “The Reform America can Afford Act (H.R. 5424)”:

1.  Lowering health care premiums 20% with no other explanation -- so I guess through all these steps, lowering premiums would be the “result” of their "magic bullet" reform.

2.  Reforming high risk pools – to make insurance available to those with pre-existing conditions, which if anything would increase costs because those who would be making claims and therefore would cost the insurers more would now by theory be able to get insurance, so this is more of a give-away……

3.  Ending “junk lawsuits” through “enacting medical liability reforms”--- which is another way of saying TORT REFORM….

So, PolitiFact might give Blumner a Mostly True or Half True on that one, but it’s still true that tort reform is quite high—let’s say Number Two--on the Republican List of health care reforms.

The heart of Blumner’s article, however, is this, which Bryan terms “magical thinking”:

Hoy Polloi and Abortionomics

It’s difficult to discuss the controversial subject of abortion; it’s a complex issue and I prefer to avoid it. A conservative blogger named Matt Hoy who has a website called hoystory.com which is linked from the PolitiFact Bias blogspot, has made some interesting contentions about PolitiFact’s “logic failures” in regard to rulings they’ve made on abortion in relation to healthcare reform. So while I’m going to try to stick with looking at the “logic failure” I will most likely still say some things contentious. However, as PolitiFact says, “appeasing both sides is impossible.”

His website article displayed two PolitiFact (PF) rulings which seem to contradict each other. They are statements by the National Right to Life Committee which PolitiFact ruled on concerning healthcare reform about six months before “Obamacare” passed. PF ruled that it was TRUE that the proposed “Baucus bill” “contains provisions that would send massive subsidies directly to both private insurance plans and government-chartered cooperatives that pay for elective abortion” , but PF ruled that it was FALSE that “under the Baucus bill, federal funds would subsidize coverage of elective abortion.” Hoy did them backwards in order to make his logic look more “logical.”

Yep, sounds contradictory on first glance. Looking at the first claim ruled True on “massive subsidies” the most important point (ignored by Hoy) is that many of the private insurers, as pointed out by PF, were already paying for abortion:

...many private plans (outside the government) currently offer abortion services. If the government starts providing health care subsidies but bans the participation of any plan that offers abortion services (as some legislators have suggested), abortion rights groups argue it would strip millions of women of benefits they currently get.

There’s a good reason why they offer them, and Hoy knows precisely what that is, but I’ll get into that later.

Grading PolitiFact *Liberal*-Style: Railroaded in Florida

This particular ruling by PolitiFact Florida (as written by Katie Sanders) concerns the refusal of Federal money by Florida’s new Governor Rick Scott for high speed rail. Corrine Brown, a Democratic representative from Jacksonville, stated that as a result Florida would lose “60,000-plus jobs for Floridians” for which PolitiFact gave her a “False.” But was “60,000-plus jobs” estimate by Brown really so false?

According to Brown’s congressional speech on YouTube, she said specifically that the Florida High Speed Rail program “will put over 60,000 Floridians to work.” So, did Brown preface these jobs by saying:

• “permanently?”

• “full time” or “part time”?

• “occurring immediately or over time?”

And she does not use 60,000 in issued statements, as provided by PolitiFact source links: (emphasis added)

Certainly, to offset Florida’s unemployment rate, which is stuck at 12%, investment in our state’s infrastructure system is essential. The reasoning is simple: investment in transportation and infrastructure creates jobs, and, according to the Department of Transportation, for every $1 billion invested in infrastructure projects, over 42,000 well paying jobs are created.

And according to Florida DOT and the Florida High Speed Rail Association, the construction of what was projected to be merely the first high speed rail line, from Tampa-Orlando, was estimated to produce nearly 75,000 construction jobs, as well as numerous positions to operate and maintain the trains once the system was in place.

Politi-Score: More Red in Ohio

During the 2010 election cycle, a trend was noted concerning the PolitiFact (PF) State Truth-o-meter rulings: that the “redder” affiliated state newspapers (ones that, for example, endorsed more Republican candidates) tended toward rulings, when averaged out through the Politi-Score, to either be more balanced between the parties, or to even favor Republicans, especially when compared to PF National. So how did that work out now with ALL the rulings instead of two months’ worth?

Before starting, I should note that I will be changing my “About This Blog” page shortly to reflect I am going with what I call “Wide Measure” rulings only from now on. I do like the innateness of 100 points for True, 50 points for Half True and zero for False.

That being said, here are the Democrat and Republican Politi-Scores compared for all states, for “former and current office-holders” only, according to that measure.

The “50” for Half True is the first focus on this chart. The averages ranged below 50 (Half True), but only PolitiFacts National and Florida, who have some of the same writers, had scores above 50 for the Democrats. Since together they dominate over 3/4 of the rulings, it caused the “ALL” scoring in the last column to average to above 50, even though all other PF states scored 50 or under collectively (for both parties).

Why Dummies Want To Take Wisconsin

Lil White Lies: Raising Kaine

Our first encounter with a numbers problem came last September when Ron Paul cited the war death toll in a debate. "We've lost over 5,000 Americans over there in Afghanistan, in Iraq, and plus the civilians killed," Paul said.

Turns out the fatality count on that date was actually 4,349 if you include civilian deaths. Does that mean Paul was wrong? Should he get a False on the Truth-O-Meter? …

In Paul's case, his point was a simple one, that many people have died in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He overstated the number, but not by all that many. …

To assess the truth for a numbers claim, the biggest factor is the underlying message.

--Bill Adair (2008)

Ron Paul received a rating from PolitiFact (PF) of Mostly True for this statement Bill Adair used in explaining how rulings were arrived at, reflecting a variance of about 13% between 4,349 and 5,000. And it should be noted that Paul said OVER 5,000. The underlying point was that many people have died in Iraq.

In this PolitiFact Virginia ruling, the statement being fact-checked was one by DNC Chairman Tim Kaine: that “jobs increased 1 percent under George Bush while population grew 10 percent." PF Virginia’s writer Sean Gorman found that the nation’s population grew by about 7.8% during this time, according the U.S. Census Bureau, and that jobs grew by .83 percent, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Doing the math, that puts Kaine’s numbers within about 6% (a ratio of 9.4 to 1 instead of 10 to 1) of what he claimed. Therefore Gorman considered them “pretty much on the mark” and awarded a “Mostly True” ruling to Kaine. Considering Republican Ron Paul received a “Mostly True” for being 13% (or more) off, does Tim Kaine merit it for half that margin of error?

Politi-Score: "My Bad" Boehner

In my initial review of Eric Ostermeier’s article “Selection Bias? PolitiFact Rates Republican Statements as False at 3 Times the Rate of Democrats” I deduced that he had used PolitiFact National statistics only. As a matter of uniformity, this was probably the most “scientific” way to do it. But because his total number of 511 statements still seemed a little low, and he did not come out and say that this was PolitiFact National, I puzzled over how I could determine it.

Since Speaker of the House John Boehner is from Ohio, I thought I might manually confirm his rulings. Indeed, he had some rulings by PolitiFact National and some by PolitiFact Ohio, here’s how his count worked out for 2010 when he received 21 PolitiFact rulings:

Boehner 2010	PF National	PF Ohio	Total
True	6	4	10
Mostly True	2	0	2
Half True	1	2	3
Barely True	1	0	1
False	3	2	5
Pants on Fire	0	0	0
Total	13	8	21

So right there (in emphasis), as Ostermeier noted, six Trues, two Mostly Trues, and one Half True. Yes, Ostermeier had compiled Boehner’s numbers for PolitiFact National only.

The issue raised for me was the way I had gathered my data for my “2,788 Reasons” series of posts. I accomplished the task by going to the “Other People and Groups” page of the PolitiFact.com website, and linking to each person, and then copying the numbers from the “Statements by Ruling” list. But the issue was that the “Statements by Ruling” do not tell you which PolitiFact group the ruling was done by, and there are some overlaps. The other politico I checked was House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, since he is a representative from Virginia, and yes, he had one ruling done by PolitiFact Virginia.

Politi-Score: Dumb Politics in Detail

I wasn’t quite satisfied with the analysis of my previous post on Smart Politics’ Eric Ostermeier’s critique on PolitiFact rulings. I decided to do something a little more in depth and graphical, and to look into my contention that he only used PolitiFact National’s ruling data. Some of this post repeats some of the findings, but puts them in a more understandable format. And, in the process, I found out I needed to make some adjustments to the database I had collected because of an interesting finding.

Of the 511 statements put through the Truth-O-Meter test from January 1, 2010 through January 31, 2011, PolitiFact devoted 74 percent of its attention to current and former political officeholders and elected officials (379 statements), 17 percent to ideological organizations and individuals not holding political office (85 statements), and 9 percent to other groups and individuals without a partisan or ideological agenda (28 statements). Another 20 statements came from chain e-mails, public opinion polls, bumper stickers, or "bloggers" generally (4 percent).

Source of PolitiFact Ruling (PolitiFact National)	Ostermeier Count	Ostermeier Percentage	Politi- Psychotics Count	Politi- Psychotics Percentage
Current and former political officeholders and elected politicians	379	74.2	1,330	74.6
Ideological organizations and individuals not holding political office	85	16.6	316	17.7
Other groups and individuals without a partisan or ideological agenda	28	5.5	34	1.9
Chain e-mails, public opinion polls, bumper stickers or “bloggers”	20	3.9	104	5.8

His numbers add to 512 (one more than 511), and the chain e-mails, etc., overlap with groups and individuals without a partisan or ideological agenda. In other words, when he said “9 percent to other groups and individuals” it includes the 20 statements from chain e-mails, etc., since his quoted 28 does not compute to 9 percent of 511. I’ve divided that 9 percent to show he had about 5 percent for those without an ideological agenda, and about 4 percent for chain e-mails, etc.