Find THIS PolitiFact Ruling: Michele Bachmann

In my last post I promised that I'd follow with ten excellent statements by Michele Bachmann never covered by PolitiFact.  Because, like the blog PolitiFact Bias, here at Politi-Psychotics, we "anticipate a pattern of ignored stories that puts PolitiFact in the role of serving the interests of the" RIGHT.  Unlike those who promise objective research proving PolitiFact liberal bias, I keep my promise.

So let’s get started on a Republican who should have been taken to task by fact-checkers for some things, but true to being in the role of serving the political interests of the right, PolitiFact didn’t select these items for fact-checks. Our subject speaker today is Mrs. “PolitiFact said everything I said was True” Michele Bachmann, and all that snarkiness Bryan White complains about that could have gone along with it. 

1. On the payroll tax cut extension:

And remember, the reason why President Obama proposed it in the first place was to create jobs. There isn’t one shred of evidence that that created jobs. So it defeated its purpose. 

Great one for economic specialist and Grading PolitiFact's favorite PolitiFact journalist Lou Jacobson. Except…except….he didn’t select this one! Why not?!!! It’s a no-brainer!

2. On the Keystone XL pipeline:

The delayed Keystone XL pipeline "would have brought at least 20,000 jobs,"

Another good one for “counts.” PolitiFact never addressed the “jobs” part of it at all, gross or net.

3. On solving the deficit and national debt crisis:

We need to simply tell people the facts, like Glenn Beck, with that chalkboard, that man can explain anything. I think if we give Glenn Beck the numbers, he can solve this.

So, can Glenn Beck solve the debt crisis with a chalkboard, like Bachmann says?

4. On marriage equality:

Because the immediate consequence, if gay marriage goes through, is that K-12 little children will be forced to learn that homosexuality is normal, natural and perhaps they should try it.

Will K-12 children be forced to learn that homosexuality is normal as a result of same sex marriage?

5. On global warming:

But there isn’t even one study that can be produced that shows carbon dioxide is a harmful gas. There isn’t one such study because carbon dioxide is not a harmful gas, it is a harmless gas. Carbon dioxide is natural. It is not harmful. It is part of Earth’s life cycle.

So, is Bachman correct about there being no studies showing carbon dioxide to be a “harmful gas.” Actually, she’s technically right, but her statement was very, very misleading. Too bad PolitiFact missed all the nuance in serving the political interests of the right.

6. On her presidential campaign poll numbers:

Our campaign's rising poll numbers have not gone unnoticed. The latest Iowa poll has our campaign in second place, just behind Mitt Romney and ahead of Rick Perry.

Hey that would have been an easy one for PolitiFact to call False! What happened?

7. On Obama’s energy policy:

I think it's important to note that the president recognized how devastating the [Environmental Protection Agency] has been in their rulemaking, so much so that the president had to suspend current EPA rules that would have led to the shutting down of potentially 20 percent of all of America's coal plants…

PolitiFact could have called an expert witness on this....but they didn't.  One more non-fact-check!

8. On Obamacare:

In a March 23, 2010 speech in Iowa, Bachmann said that most Americans want to overturn the law.

"From the day it passed one year ago until today, there hasn't been one week that a majority of Americans haven't said 'kill that bill,'" she said.

This would be a good poll question for PolitiFact; MPR PoliGraph found it inconclusive, so PolitiFact might have gotten away with a Half True or Mostly False to penalize Bachmann but make it look like they aren’t giving her all Pants on Fire.

9. On Obamacare for illegal aliens:

So, an illegal alien can say, ‘I want free health care for me and for my family.’ No one asks, ‘Are you a legal citizen?’ No one asks, ‘Will you show me your documentation that you’re a legal citizen?’ Which means 17 million, potentially, illegal aliens that are in the United States, would have the ability to receive taxpayer-funded health care.

So does Obamacare mean free healthcare for illegal aliens? Again, this is a pretty simple one because all PolitiFact would have to do is quote the language of the bill itself, but they didn’t—must be some sort of reverse cherry-picking to serve the interests of the right.

10. And lastly, an oldie but goodie which came pre-PolitiFact but is probably a view still held by Bachmann today and would have been an easy fact-check:

Literally, if we took away the minimum wage—if conceivably it was gone—we could potentially virtually wipe out unemployment completely because we would be able to offer jobs at whatever level.

Isn't lying a sin?

When I took macro-economics as part of my undergraduate degree, I had to take it twice when I moved and transferred from red state Indiana to blue state Michigan, as Michigan refused to give it transfer credit. But it gave me the unwitting opportunity to find out the difference between the Keynesian school of economics and Milton Friedman's Monetarist (Chicago) school of economics by taking it twice. It also made me realize how deeply “political” economics is as coursework. In the red state version, the theory about minimum wage was almost an axiom (and this was in the late 1970’s). It was actually taught sort of the reverse of how Bachmann presented it: that if you raise the minimum wage, unemployment will go up: employers will lay off people because they cannot pay everyone the increased wage. So, by eliminating or lowering the minimum wage, there’d theoretically be more people working, but for less....sort of like “right to work (for less).” I’m a wee bit older than Bachmann but I’m sure this is how she learned this given her educational background. I believe the actual statistics are inconclusive as to this theory; it may have earned upwards of a Half True by PolitiFact.

But there you have ten statements covering a plethora of Republican red meat issues, which I found fairly easily, never selected or ruled on by PolitiFact. Does it provide some contrast to PolitiFact's selection process?  Is there something to be seen here?  I'd say it's only my cherry-picking versus someone else's cherry-picking.