Tchotchkes: Media Bias (to Republicans)

Oops, just had to get this one in before I signed off until mid-June!

Sidebar: Karen On Hold

This blog is now "on hold"--there will be no further postings until mid-June.  I will be on "vacation" from my laptop and the internet and taking a long-planned extended trip to and through.....can you guess from the photo?  

Thanks for reading, and I will return. 



Tchotchkes: Uncle Jay Explains Congress

Another amusing semi-political parody from somebody's funny uncle.  This is from 2007 but it could have been done yesterday. Thanks to my good friend Mary B. for telling me about him; I hope to publish more of his videos in the future. 

Politi-Score: The Beast is Yet to Come

The website The Daily Beast recently jumped on the PolitiFact scoring bandwagon complimented with a gallery pictorial 1 to 10 ranking review of what it describes as the “Most Ignorant Politicians.” I beg to differ with that, as I believe those that are listed may just be dumb…like a fox, as they say. Their “scoring” methodology, which is more akin to a "Pants-On-Fire Meter," is explained as follows:

The Daily Beast tried to measure the most fact-challenged politicians in America, who, based on their public statements, apparently need to brush up on their high-school reading. For our data, we relied on Politifact, the Pulitzer Prize-winning website founded by the St. Petersburg Times, which independently verifies or corrects statements made by public officials. We limited our pool to well-known politicians with at least six statements inspected by Politifact, and then assigned a point system based on Politifact’s Truth-O-Meter designations:

0 points for True or Mostly True statements

1 point for Half True or Barely True statements

3 points for False statements

5 points for Pants on Fire statements—the most absurd, ridiculous statements

For the final ranking, we took each politician’s point total and divided by the total number of statements analyzed by Politifact for each politician. Care to take an educated guess at America’s Most Ignorant Politician?  Click here to find out.

I’m assuming the “True” and “Mostly True” rulings, even though scored zero, are included in the “divided by all rulings” number, which would serve to mitigate the overall calculated number. But you will notice, looking at the scores as I calculated below for the Top Ten with my dataset as collected through the end of 2010, that from an intuitive standpoint, the Daily Beast scores (“DB-Scores”) are not easy to interpret. Here are the top ten “Most Ignorant” using the Daily Beast scoring applied to my through-2010 database, with the Politi-Score next to it. While the Politi-Score trends in the opposite direction to the Daily Beast scores, it does not correspond exactly. This is because the “score 5 for Pants on Fire” really skews its overall calculation, as can be seen by Michele Bachmann, who has received a LOT of Pants on Fire rulings, and has a 3.92 overall grade towering way above everyone else.

The names highlighted "pink" (red) show the Republicans.

When Dummies Get Called Home

Lil White Lies: Food Stamp Jesus

Recently newly-declared Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich made a statement which some considered racially tinged about Obama, which PolitiFact (PF) ruled as Half True.  Because my conservative counterpart Bryan White claims it was taken out of its proper context, here’s the complete quote:

You want to be a country that creates food stamps, in which case frankly Obama's is an enormous success …The most successful food stamp president in American history. Or do you want to be a country that creates paychecks?

Bryan claims that Gingrich “used food stamps as an "analogy" (metaphor's more like it) to Obama's approach of relying on government action rather than private initiative. It isn't that Obama gave out food stamps, it's that he did not pursue successful job-creating policies.”

In the interview with David Gregory where Gingrich was asked for clarification he said that Obama “follows the same destructive political model that destroyed the city of Detroit. I follow the model that Rick Perry and others have used to create more jobs in Texas.”

But how are things really going in Texas?

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is reporting that food-stamp participation in Texas jumped from 2.68 million individuals in August to 2.95 million in September.

As the economic hard times continue, it is likely that those numbers will increase, officials estimate.

“Texas ranks 47th in the nation in the number of food-secure families, meaning we have more people wondering where their next meal will come from than almost any other state,” says Celia Hagert, senior policy analyst at the Texas Center for Public Policy Priorities, an Austin-based think tank.

So if this is true, what is Newt Gingrich talking about? And this was in 2008, right at the start of the recession. From 2009 to 2010, Texas’s food stamp usage increased a whopping 24.6%. However, Newt is correct is one respect: food stamps have a lot to do with lack of jobs, or BAD jobs (not the kind that used to be  in Detroit), which I’ve addressed here before:

Sidebar: Miserable in Mississippi

Earlier this year I posted about the curious trends noticeable in health statistics collected for the “Ten Most Healthy” as compared to the “Ten Least Healthy” states. The chart I originally posted listing the states may be more difficult to read, so I decided to average it together and here is what I came up with:

The Ten “Most Healthy” states are, in order: Vermont, Hawaii, New Hampshire, Minnesota, Utah, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Idaho, Maine and Washington. The Ten “Least Healthy” states are Lousiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Florida, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Nevada and Georgia. There may be some argument over how “red” or “blue” the states are, but it should be pretty obvious, especially in the case of the “Least Healthy”, that the red states predominate.

Sometimes I think this is something Liberals and Democrats aren’t considering. If I was a Democratic congressperson, I’d be on the floor of congress with bigger, more colorful graphs and asking those in Republican strongholds such as South Carolina, Texas, and Oklahoma why their policies have not resulted in healthier, more insured constituencies, and why in the hell do they have to take more Federal money than they send back. I might even ask the Congressional Budget Office, if I had that power, to calculate the costs of having a 39% higher incidence of diabetes, more obesity, more deaths from heart disease and cancer in those states, especially given the fact that more of these people go without health insurance.

On the positive side, there are better job opportunities (or opportunities to “make a living”) in the “unhealthy” states, and there is less personal debt, less than half the debt on average, than those in the healthy states. It should be noted almost every “Least Healthy” state was a “right to work (for less)” state, while most of the “Healthier” states were not. Which basically might mean that you probably can’t get as much credit with a lower-paying job (in a “least healthy” state), so you don’t get into as much debt.

Tchotchkes: The May 1st Ironic News Report

Comedian Juliana Forlano hosts. This is almost better than Mock the Dummies. She doesn't have a lot of page hits, but I expect as word gets around this will be a popular youtube.com video.

Politi-Express Barely True Review

Or: Shouldn't Barely True be Mostly False?

At PolitiFact (PF), a ruling of Barely True means that “The statement contains an element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression.” I do not like the words “Barely True” because the word True is somewhat misleading as it conveys the “True” or truth of the ruling more strongly than the False, even though it's more "False" than "True".  To see how stressing the "False" is more in line with the ruling, here's a short review of four of PolitiFact's Barely True rulings done during the first quarter of 2011.

Promises, promises. Michele Bachmann, Republican, in her response to Obama’s state of the union address, said “The White House promised us that all the spending would keep unemployment under 8 percent."

OMG!  Farley passed!

Some of this was repeated verbatim for another PolitiFact fact-check in February by PF Virginia on George Allen, former Virginia Senator.

My conservative counterpart, who broke from his usual harsh patterns and gave PF writer Robert Farley and Editor Martha Hamilton a grade of C on the Bachmann ruling, insisted that it was hypocritical that this was not included on the Obameter as a “promise”.

I think I agree with the sense of the final finding. Bachmann's statement had a basis in fact but tended to mislead without additional explanation. The final ruling surprised me a bit considering the content of the story. PolitiFact often labels statements with a foundation in the truth "False" rather than "Barely True."

PolitiFact deserves the most pointed criticism for its flirtation with hypocrisy in identifying campaign "promises" using methods akin to those that helped identify this "promise" from the White House.

As an example, while PF claims it could not find where Obama specifically stated he would reduce national unemployment to 8% through the stimulus, other politicians like Florida’s new governor Rick Scott actually repeatedly spoke of promising “700,000 jobs in 7 years” for Floridians. From a debate in July, 2010:

I've created jobs in the private sector. As governor, my 7-step plan will create 700,000 in 7 years.

And PolitiFact checked out his plan, giving him a Mostly True for being about 6% off the 700,000 number, which is in keeping with its “politi-math.” PF Florida now includes it as a promise “in the works” on the “Scott-o-meter.” Obama never said it this explicitly; Bryan White relies on the “implication” from a report from one of Obama’s economic advisors. PolitiFact National never included it as a promise on the Obameter because he never said it and it was not part of his statement of policy, which makes up a lot of the Obameter. In other words, this is a rather disingenuous attempt to fault PolitiFact for not including an implicit, imprecise promise not directly made by Obama on the Obameter. So yes, I’m agreeing with Bryan White here: Bachmann's statement had a basis in fact but tended to mislead without additional explanation. So….she’s mostly false.

Sidebar: What Have You Done *FOR ME* Lately?

Recently, the so-called liberal media is spotlighting a May 24 special election in a solidly “red” Republican district in New York: following the introduction of “RyanCare” and its drastic re-structure of Medicare (most liberals call it "the end of") a sudden “shift” occurred among the older, conservative voters. And now the district is in play.

Spelling's improved; thinking hasn't.

If the Tea Party candidate concedes to the Republican (which is doubtful), the Republicans would still own the district, but it appears it would not win by as much of a margin as in prior elections. The division between the Tea and Republican parties is causing some polls to show the Democrat in the lead, so it’s interesting to speculate as to what’s causing the shift.

My take on it: I once heard the Tea Party called the “Tax ‘Em All (but me)” party, and it made me chuckle. And that’s the thing about many of these Randian, self-interested "Republican" voters (I'm just calling them for what they are, even though they like to say they include Democrats:  come on!).  They want the government made smaller, they want taxes cut for them, but they don’t want to lose any government benefits for themselves, and when they do lose anything, when it hits them in their pocketbook, they go with their self-interest…which may mean voting for the Democrat. This could also be termed “wanting the best of both worlds”—not just tax ‘em all (but me) but cut benefits and services for everyone (but me).  Voting opportunistically, not ideologically.

I got mine...so screw you.

I noted in a previous post how, in my home state of Michigan, several quite noisy diehard retired Republican letter-to-the-editor writers suddenly went silent when new governor Rick Snyder put forth his proposal to solve Michigan’s budget crisis by taxing their pensions to the tune of 4.25%, which were previously exempt. Or some years ago, I recall meeting a new neighbor, who proudly told me he was a “staunch conservative” because “liberals were hypocrits” only to then inform me he was a pipefitter for General Motors: i.e., he was a member of the UAW, from which he derived Cadillac wages and benefits because of their hard fought collective bargaining efforts, took his dues to support 99% Democratic candidates, and put out a monthly publication to members like him that reads like a socialist manifesto.  So he must have seen no contradiction (read: hypocrisy) between working for a major union for much higher pay and benefits than he would get as a plumber (that's basically what a pipefitter is--Joe the Plumber would be envious) yet voting for a party that would bust his union given the opportunity...which raises the obvious question:  would he still vote for them if they did?

So we see that same type of shift here: the conservative “personal responsibility” mantra also entails personal risk. The risk is that in order to reduce government, you may personally lose certain  benefits , whether from the government or because of the government, or be taxed (by Republican vote) directly or indirectly, and part of “personal responsibility” is recognizing and preparing for that. Apparently “personal responsibility” doesn’t mean anything to some Republican tea partiers beyond a nice talking point.

Postscript (5/24/11):  The winner of the special election in New York's normally solidly Republican 26th District mentioned at the beginning of this post was indeed the Democrat, Kathy Hochul.  It should be noted that in 2010, the Republican winner, Chris Lee, garnered close to 74% of the vote.  What a difference six months makes--or, to use another "song", when it comes to privatizing Medicare, don't it make your red states blue.

Lil White Lies: Mocking the Vote

Provisional ballots were the subject of this PolitiFact (PF) ruling on Bill Nelson, Democrat Senator from Florida, who garnered a “Mostly True.”  He stated: “55% of people who cast a provisional ballot (in Florida) in last presidential election—their vote did not count.”

My conservative counterpart’s take on this is that there was a “good reason” that 55% of provisional ballots were rejected, and PolitiFact failed to elaborate on that. Unfortunately, no good reason was presented by him, either, except for more fallacies for fun and frivolity, this time that the obvious suppression of the vote of women and students is simply a “red herring.” Except if your last name is “White” (see video below).

 

But let’s first get the gist of this out of the way.  In a previous post on “Mostly True” rulings, a rough percentage has been established of about 4% to as high as 15% from the precise numerical answer.  According to Bryan White:  “...As Nelson could justify rounding to 55 from 52.5, his number represents an inflation of only about 2 percent…” WRONG! It was 51.4% out of 55%, which represents an inflation of about 7 percent. Or, using the 52.5%, it would be just under 5 percent. Either one qualifies for a "Mostly True" ruling based on the literal statement. But of course, my counterpart would rather obfuscate the subjective issue of the “underlying argument” to his ideological benefit, seeing that he's much better at that than using a calculator.

Here is a Greg Palast video with something on provisional ballots, called Steal back your vote:

At about the 2:15 mark, Palast states that you won't lose your vote if your name is…John White…is that Bryan White’s brother?  At about 2:30 he talks about provisional ballots, and how there's one chance in three the provisional ballot will be discarded.

An article at Alternet leads us to the basis of the “red herring” line of reasoning, also alluded to by writer Aaron Sharockman in the PolitiFact piece, which turns out to be more boilerplate GOP talking points on provisional ballots:

Politi-Score: Insidious Effects

I devote a lot of my blog to someone I often term “my conservative counterpart” because he seems to have his life devoted to “exposing PolitiFact” for its supposed liberal bias at his weblogs Sublime Bloviations and PolitiFact Bias. When he (Bryan White) first became aware of my counterpoint blog, he immediately wrote some pieces trashing me at another shadow-blog he had called “Bad Blogs' Blood.” (If you Google “politi-psychotics” you will see his blog in the results, referring to my “bad reporting” and “bad thinking” and “publishing predominantly a load of nonsense.” I must have had him worried!) After he wrote me four consecutive letters one day on Facebook which I chose to ignore, he in turn ignored me, by making a point to never mention my blog on his main blog Sublime Bloviations.  Recently, however, he’s made comments (as he does every now and then) where it’s obvious the message is directed to me, as in this case, since he is very much aware of the Politi-Score:

Afters: The insidious effects of the type of selection bias found in this PolitiFact story have their full effect when PolitiFact encourages readers to look at the collected statements about a person in order to develop an impression about the person. Using Eisnaugle as an example, the reader of Eisnaugle's PolitiFact "report card" (they actually call it that!) would see a lone "False" rating. Yet if PolitiFact had chosen either of the other two statements to rate, Eisnaugle would have a lone "True" rating. Or if PolitiFact had rated all three, Eisnaugle could expect to have two "True" ratings and one "False" rating.

What good is a grade point average created under these types of conditions?

Short answer: There is no “good” to a grade point average (GPA or Politi-Score) under these types of conditions. It is an irrelevant measure.

Long Answer: In order to get a reasonably “good” GPA (Politi-Score), there has to be a sufficiently large quantity of rulings over a sustained period of time. Probably the only politicians who meet this measure, as of the end of 2010, are Barack Obama and John McCain, with over 400 rulings between them.

Tchotckes: On That Oft-Repeated Freudian Slip

This and the previous post graphic are courtesy of About.com Political Humor.

Tchotchkes: Mission Accomplished

Tchotckes: 2012 Obama-for-Prez Bumper Sticker

...Highlighting Obama's latest accomplishment.  Thanks to Bartcop.com for his many wonderful graphics.

Politi-Score: Healthcare Lies Making You Sick?

For the 2011 first quarter compilation of PolitiFact (PF) rulings, I decided, for the first time, to include the "topic."  PolitiFact calls it the "subject" at the top line of its sources and authors to the right of its ruling page under the heading "About This Statement".  The subjects are often multiple, so this task took longer than I thought as I wanted to confine the ruling to a single topic; it often involved reading through the ruling to determine more precisely what PF was  trying to find the "truth" of.

For this post, the Democrats and Republicans will not be juxtaposed against each other; instead, thus far in 2011, the interest is in what subjects are lied about the most, or at the other end, what are the subjects for which politicians are more likely to tell the truth.  So this Politi-Score is calculated to include all political affiliations (as well as none).

First off, here is the distribution of the top ten (by percentage of total) subjects or topics for the PolitiFact's first quarter of 2011: (with "Other" as the "eleventh" subject)

Click to enlarge