Lil White Lies Extra: PFB prefers the GOP

PolitiFact Bias (PFB) has recently posted on a comparison of rulings which it insists are very much alike, but totally inconsistent when it comes to the Truth-o-Meter grade, having to do with congressional pay raises. Its recent post states the supposed contrast:

If the PolitiFact Ohio rating is accurate [a False ruling on a Republican] then the PolitiFact Florida rating is wrong [a True ruling for a Democrat]. And if the PolitiFact Florida rating is accurate then the PolitiFact Ohio rating is wrong.

So let's take a look at these rulings, plus a few others, to see if PolitiFact, according to PFB, is really being (unfairly) inconsistent. It turns out, PolitiFact Bias may have selected the wrong rulings to compare....which isn't too unusual.

 

The difference is the specificity.

The PolitiFact Ohio "False" rating is on senatorial candidate Josh Mandel, who said that his opponent, Senator Sherrod Brown, "voted six times to raise own pay." Now, it needs to be mentioned that the Brown campaign responded to Mandel's accusation by stating that it was just the opposite, that Brown had instead voted against pay increases seven times...which turned out not to be quite the case, either, when PolitiFact Ohio checked it out. These votes, from 1997 through 2012, were part of "broad pieces of legislation...[not] focused purely on the pay raise issue."

 

The PolitiFact Florida "True" for the Florida Democratic Party (FDC) said that 2010 governor candidate Bill McCollum voted for a pay increase four times, by the specific amount of $51,000, as well as having a $75,000 pension. This was based on an ethics law passed in 1989, which put automatic pay raises into place, as well as the amount of the raise received at the time as specified in the ad ( actually $55,000) along with the congressional pension. All following raises were automatic unless freezes were put into the "broad pieces of legislation" mentioned above--and if the broader bill was voted against, it was deemed voting "for" a pay raise.

Pants on Fire Factor: Obama-Fact

The addition of the state PolitiFacts began with the appearance of PolitiFact Florida in 2009, but really didn't really get in gear with publishing a substantive number of rulings until 2010.  In fact, in 2009, PolitiFact "Florida" published a grand total of 9 rulings, bringing in lead PolitiFact Florida writer Aaron Sharockman around October.  Then things took off in 2010 as Texas, Georgia, Rhode Island were added in the first half and then Ohio, Oregon, Wisconsin and Virginia in the second half.

 

It would seem as if the states came along to fill in the gap of the Congressional Quarterly, whose writers worked with PolitiFact doing rulings from 2007 through 2008.  However, as I described in my original assessment of this group and what its "affects" may have been , the types of statements selected at that time were of a different nature:  in the case of Congressional Quarterly, they related to its area of expertise, congressional positions and votes (although they did do other types).  In the case of the PolitiFact states, however, many rulings had to do with matters of a local nature, for example, one of the first PolitiFact Florida rulings on  a statement by then-Governor Charlie Crist who was bragging up the reduced rates of a negotiated, un-subsidized Florida healthcare program called Cover Florida Healthcare (found False).

 

The "Pants on Fire factor" (PoF) as I call it, a measure of what is claimed to be PolitiFact's bias for rating a False ruling as Pants on Fire, is shown below as aggregated from 2007 to September of 2012.    It is a comparison of Democrats to Republicans, with a factor of 1.0 translating to mean that PolitiFact assigns Pants on Fire to Democrats at the same (or equal) rate it assigns Republicans.  Anything below the 1.0 means Republicans are assigned Pants on Fire less than Democrats, anything above the 1.0 means Republicans are assigned Pants on Fire more than the Democrats (as a percentage of False + Pants on Fire rulings).

 

 

The red line shows the growth of the factor from favoring the Republicans to favoring the Democrats (or growing ever more negative for Republicans) over PolitiFact National's six years of Truth-o-Meter rulings.  The chart begins in quarterly increments until the end of 2008 to show how the Congressional Quarterly scored for that period as well, displayed in the green line. Thereafter the increments are annual.

 

At the end of 2008, PolitiFact National (including the Congressional Quarterly) had a factor below 1.0, although as shown by the green line, the Congressional Quarterly (CQ) alone was assigning Pants on Fire to Republicans 42% more than to Democrats.  With CQ behind them, in 2009 the PoF factor made its biggest jump ever at PolitiFact National, from .90 to 1.60.    For the year 2009 alone, PolitiFact National's Pants on Fire factor was a whopping 5.06.

 

Accumulated through the end of September of 2012, it now stands at 1.94--in other words, in the course of its history, PolitiFact National assigned Pants on Fire almost twice as often for Republicans as it did for Democrats.

 

Combined with the state PolitiFacts, however, the chart takes a different slope, as shown by the purple line.  It starts at the same high point as in 2009 because of there being only 9 PolitiFact Florida rulings, but as they accumulated, the aggregate Pants on Fire factor for PolitiFact as a whole dropped, from the 1.60 in 2009 down to its current 1.33.  The states themselves, if they were separated from PolitiFact National, would now average 1.21.

 

So it is indeed true that once PolitiFact "dissolved its partnership" with Congressional Quarterly, it began to appear as though it was increasingly assigning Falses as Pants on Fire to Republicans.  But working with CQ may not be a cause even with such a correlation, given that its own writers' assignment of Pants on Fire to Republicans were far more (58% more) than that of what PolitiFact National was doing at the end of 2008.  Were there other possible reasons?  What happened in 2009?

Grading PolitiFact *Liberal*-Style: Boomers Going Bust

 

PolitiFact Florida gets kind of close , but doesn’t close the deal, in justifying its overly-generous Mostly True ruling on a statement by Governor Rick Scott who thinks that fewer people collecting unemployment is a good thing: 

Scott said Florida’s economy is getting better in a lot of ways.

"We’re doing well. We’re at a three-year low on our unemployment in this state... We generated around 100,000 net jobs so far, if you look at the federal numbers," he said in the April 18, 2012, interview with Orlando-based station WDBO. "But if you look at the state numbers, about 230,000 people that were on unemployment when I took office are not on unemployment now.

The “boomer years” started in 1946, which means that the first boomers turned 62 in 2008, when they qualified for receiving reduced Social Security. Now they are turning 66, which is the age at which they receive the full amount (and of course, also have become eligible for Medicare). According to CBS News, a “ full 70 percent of recipients sign up for Social Security between age 62 and the normal full retirement age, which is between 65 and 67, depending on the year you were born.”

So, assuming 70% of boomers signed up, what we have is a lot of people dropping out of the workforce permanently, or those who have done so not of their own preference (there was no work and they ran out of unemployment benefits). I believe this phenomenon is what is making the unemployment rate drop even though so few jobs are being created, not enough jobs to keep pace with population growth. Sorry, Obama, but he (and Scott) know that's true.

In Florida this translates to about 79,000 retirement-age people (by my own calculation, based on population) who could have dropped out of the workforce in the last year, assuming half those eligible to retire at 62 continued working.

PolitiFact Florida adds “about 15,000 Floridians age 16 and up dropped out of the labor pool last month.” This certainly begs the question: how many dropped out the month before that, or for the year? If an annual number was provided, it might include the 79,000 estimate above.  I can't seem to find such month-to-month numbers on line, so it makes this 230,000 all the more elusively difficult to verify.

Coupled with the denial of “131,115 applicants for failing to comply with the new law” it seems to me Rick Scott has nothing to brag about, and in view of the many caveats to his 230,000 number, it’s more of a “partially accurate but leaves out important details.” The reason 230,000 people are not on unemployment is because the majority gave up, were rejected by Florida’s new unemployment system, or those who were eligible started collecting social security.  It had little to do with any “turn-around.” More like a Half True.

Lil White Lies: Jumping the Shark

In reviewing a Grading PolitiFact review of a PolitiFact Florida ruling on a statement by the ACLU of Florida on the amount of voter fraud in Florida versus the number of shark attacks, I let it go and didn't publish a response because the only reason I could find to oppose their argument—although it was a good one—was the ideological “it’s always best to expand democratic participation.”

But a recent youtube video from “Liberal Viewer Presents” (see below) and a follow-up post from Grading PolitiFact made me realize that Grading PolitFact’s basis for saying this Mostly True ruling was in the “wrong” and should be “False” was a, pardon the pun, felonious one, and did something it often accuses others of, that is, it built a “felons voting” straw man around the voter fraud (in this case, third party voter registrations).

I would have argued originally that in some states felons can vote once they have served their time—their debt to society has been paid, so to speak, so why should they be banned from voting. It sort of shows the absolutest, unforgiving, punishing bent of some Republicans. I might also have taken it right to the end of the slippery slope with the reductio ad absurdum “death panel” argument as well: if you’re not going to allow felons and those without ID to vote, why don’t you just restrict voting to property holders….just like our founding fathers considered doing.

But the “democracy” argument is not the right one for this case. That’s because Grading PolitiFact cannot add these felons to the count as voter fraud to compare to shark attacks. The reason it cannot add them is because the new law does not prevent felons from voting. A person’s driver license does not indicate if they are a felon. Often the police can only see that a person’s drivers’ license is legitimate and hasn’t expired along with traffic charges, and the only way to know whether the driver is a felon is to have police access and be able to look at the person’s arrest record. One can possibly have a felony conviction with traffic charges from being at fault in a deadly traffic accident, but there are many more felonies outside of that. In some cases the police access is restricted (there has to be “cause”): Is it a “cause” to check every person’s driver license for a felony when they vote? In the case of the teacher helping her students register to vote, I’d say the felon question applies in the same way. When filling out the application you must confirm that you are not a felon without “civil rights restored.” The article in the Tampa Bay Times as well as the PolitiFact ruling was not about felons found voting; it was about the rules for third party voter registrations.

It should be noted that Florida’s assistant attorney general called the subject teacher in the article (doing the "third party registrations") and made her an offer to “settle out of court” which means it was not being treated quite like an “illegality.”

Sidebar: Liberal Proof of PolitiFact (Liberal) Bias

This started out as a “Lil White Lies” follow-up post, but actually, I’m not picking on Grading PolitiFact here. I may even be giving the "enemy" some ammunition, but in this case, PolitiFact kind of deserves it.

When I spotted these two rulings, the question occurred to me why Tom Feran at PolitiFact Ohio AND Angie Drobnic-Holan at PolitiFact Florida would basically cover the same statement. Above are the banners at Pat Boone’s page on PolitiFact, and the "difference" is highlighted. They were published four days apart.

I also thought I may have confused the two because I recall mentioning PolitiFact Ohio’s Tom Feran in my Lil White Lies post—but I had removed the reference in my final review. Of course, my conservative counterpart at Sublime Bloviations wouldn’t have made that mistake because his critique preceded the publishing of PolitiFact Ohio’s ruling by a few days. If he had known, I think he might have done a review covering both.

If you read them, the emphasis in both is on the so-called rationing of the IPAB, while the “wasteful spending” is secondary. Writer Feran leads into his article on how the Pat Boone video via the anti-AARP 60 Plus Association has been advertised in the state of Ohio. But the pieces are pretty redundant; I’ve noted before where this has happened, sometimes very obvious, and sometimes with an easy topic.

But there’s one other interesting aspect of this, besides the perhaps unnecessary repeat of a Pants on Fire claim perpetuated by Republicans (to refute one of their known talking points); it’s the fact that I’ve noticed that Angie Drobnic Holan and Tom Feran have both had the distinction of being the most Democrat-favorable PolitiFact journalists (through computing and comparing the Republican versus Democrat Truth Index by PF writer). When I noticed Angie last year I called it “Angie’s List Left” although she has gotten more upright in that comparison. Tom Feran’s left list, however, tilts way over to port since the data I used encompassed a full year; Angie’s was three months’ worth.

But what makes matters worse as a matter of comparison is a PolitiFact ruling from earlier this year (above) done by Eric Stirgus of Georgia, which looks like a definite conflict with the two Pat Boone rulings:

Sidebar: I just *donut* believe this PF ruling!

As March approaches, I decided it might be time to start gathering PolitiFact (PF) rulings for the first quarter of 2012. And along with that, more refinements to the database to enable me to glean ever more stats. This year I decided to use the specific date of the fact-check—before, I had only input the month/year. I added gender and a second subject line, so that I could fine-tune the subject breakdown.

And since I am now adding the tag line of the fact-check, which I started in the last quarter of 2011, I’m now compelled to more closely examine the ruling itself. As I’ve gone along I’ve realized that there might be a need for a “Bad Fact-Check” series on my blog. By bad fact check, I don’t mean those that are disputed as permeated with the inherent bias of the reviewer, like recently by Rachel Maddow.

With the first 100 rulings recorded (between PolitiFacts National and Florida) I’ve noticed a few things for January: due to the Republican primaries, the vast majority of rulings have been the Republican candidates. In January, almost 85% of the fact-checks were Republicans, confined mostly to Romney, Santorum and Gingrich and their SuperPACs, which were 77% of the Republican fact-checks.

In addition, I noticed that PolitiFact New Hampshire appears to no longer be publishing rulings with the PF New Hampshire heading and topic categorization, and that Angie Drobnic-Holan has become one of the main writers for PolitiFact Florida, and no longer writes for PolitiFact National. Of course, the two PolitiFacts are inexorably connected, and that is more about the internal operations of PolitiFact as a business. For all I know, Bill Adair may have already published something about New Hampshire’s role.

Whoever selected this ruling needs to have their sugar levels checked.

But this post is more about a ruling I came across which I thought my conservative counterpart would find pretty…sweet for his blog. This was a statement by Republican Florida Governor Rick Scott in his State of the State address on January 10: that he had worked in a doughnut shop (called Nicola’s) earlier that day and that they had sold out of doughnuts, 240 dozen, by 8:30 a.m.. PolitiFact Florida determined that it was closer to 80 dozen, and so rated the claim Mostly False.

So here we have another statement from that “vast ocean” that PolitiFact can select from, and yet they choose this? Doughnut counts? Is this a joke?  I feel like I just got fried.

Shortly after Scott’s speech, Waatti spoke to David DeCamp of the Tampa Bay Times. She said the 240-dozen figure includes all of the doughnuts sold at both Nicola’s locations throughout the entire day Scott worked at the bakery. But she also reconfirmed that the shop Scott worked at sold about 80 dozen while he was there.

At PolitiFact Florida, we’re almost as serious about our doughnuts as we are our fact-checks. We rate Scott’s "240 dozen" claim Mostly False.

Now can somebody pass a maple glazed?

So Scott gets a Mostly False because he wasn’t exactly truthful about the number of doughnuts, using the number for all locations instead of just the location where he “worked”. The problem I have with this satire of a ruling is that it puts a big Mostly False on a Republican, for a fact check on something that’s like a doughnut in that it has a lot of calories (counts on the Truth-o-Meter) yet there’s no nutritional value.

It makes me not just want to glaze over, but pass a nutty one to PolitiFact. This one gets my first nomination for the Top Ten List of bad fact-checks by PolitiFact. I’m guessing there may be more, and hope they’re not all on Republicans, because this may end up inadvertently doing all those Politifact-bashers a favor.

Grading PolitiFact *Liberal*-Style: The Unadmitted Majority

NOTE:  About a week after this "Mostly True" ruling was published, PolitiFact revised it to Half True:  "After it appeared, we heard from many readers who argued that our rating of Mostly True was the wrong call....Upon further discussion, and bolstered by more reporting, we have decided to change this ruling to Half True."

The last time I ran with a PolitiFact ruling that Rachel Maddow had “graded” as perhaps conservatively biased for purposes of Grading PolitiFact Liberal Style, I caught a bit of flack. It had to do with the context of the statement and perhaps the implied intentions of the statement-maker (in that case, Obama). I thought I had better check such statements a bit more carefully in the future instead of trusting Maddow; however, we now have another Maddow fact-check of the fact checkers with a lot more to it than just the statement.

I often try to note when my conservative counterpart covers these, whether in one of his blogs or in Facebook commentary, because when the bias goes the other way he tends to ignore them. In this case, however, he was all over on this one, and it gave me a fine way to showcase his dishonesty, particularly in the area of “selection bias.”

Republican Florida senator Marco Rubio made the fact-checked statement in a speech he gave at the 2012 CPAC conference. He actually said it twice, that “this” is a movement of conservatives, or what I call the majority of Americans…” and then after a few words about “how he knew” because “liberals” never admit they’re liberals and instead using the term “progressives” he said “The majority of Americans are conservatives — they believe in things like the Constitution. I know that’s weird to some people…”

PolitiFact (PF) Florida obviously concentrated on the first statement. If they had concentrated on the re-affirmation, they would have had to deal with the caveat that it’s (only) conservatives who believe in things like the Constitution, which would make that statement blatantly false, or a lot less than Mostly True.

PolitiFact Florida used a twenty-year Gallup Poll to “support” Rubio’s claim:

For 2011, Gallup found that the largest group of Americans identify as conservative, at 40 percent. Another 35 percent identify as moderate, while 21 percent identify as liberal.

That means a plurality of Americans identify as conservative, not a majority. Then PF writer Angie Drobnic-Holan compares this to the Democrat/Republican/Independent labels, where an equal 40 percent plurality are self-indentified as Independent. Ultimately she finds that no matter how you shake it, no matter how charitable she is with the statistics, the majority is not conservative. But because conservatives and those who “lean Republican” are higher than everyone else, this justifies a ruling of Mostly True.

My conservative counterpart does his usual routine of reading into the statement and authoritatively reaching his own conclusions:

So, was Rubio correct that the majority of Americans are conservative? That depends on his argument. Rubio didn't cite surveys about self-identification. He used a method concerned with attitudes toward the respective labels. One can argue with the method or the application of the method, but using an inappropriate benchmark doesn't cut it.

Just because Rubio “used a method concerned with attitudes” doesn’t mean he was correct. In fact, Rubio’s explanation that liberals never admit they’re liberals doesn’t cut it either. If a person won’t admit they are liberal, they are still NOT conservative. There is no way to measure whether the majority of Americans are conservative by basically backing it with an anecdotal observation that liberals won’t admit they’re liberal—some other method must be employed. Bryan White uses this “attitudes” measure as a way to excuse Rubio’s point and find fault with PolitiFact’s efforts to determine whether the majority of Americans are conservative.

As usual, this provides a way for Bryan White to assert his superiority to those who disagree with him, a calculated way to set up an argument from authority:

Maddow is supposed to be ultra smart. So how come she can't figure out that Rubio's statement isn't properly measured against self-identification numbers?

(Translated: Bryan White is even more than ultra smart?). We never find out what the proper measurement is, because there is no quantifying method when “attitudes” is used.  There is no way to verify such "context." The most accurate and reasonable would be self-identification polls. Again, Rubio made the statement twice, the second time, without the “how come” that Bryan latched onto. In other words, Bryan’s complaint is sheer over-reach along with a bit of equivocation.

In the Facebook PolitiFact page comments, a poster by the name of Brian Varley made the best case as to Rubio’s statement being far less than Mostly True, by many, many different measures, in this case, widespread support for public programs and social issues which conservatives are by policy against:

Lil White Lies: Seriously, Like This

“Obamacare”—the derisive pejorative used to describe the PPACA (Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act)—became operative for me this year on April Fool’s Day. As an early retiree, or someone who retired before the age of 62, my monthly premium was waived for the rest of the year starting with that date. The premiums will also be reduced for 2012. My healthcare plan also pays for certain preventative care and wellness exams which is part of the law, although it did the same before the law was enacted, due to the fact that many insurers already did so, because it’s obviously a good idea.

It should be noted I was informed of this in late 2010; in other words, my employer was preparing for this eventuality over a year ago. In March, 2011, I received an official notice of how my premiums would be covered.

Because my employer is headquartered in Michigan, the PPACA benefits were provided almost by default. A Florida State employee who was of a similar age to me, however, might have reason to be concerned about being treated differently, for example, by having benefits delayed, reduced, or blocked, looking at this ruling by PolitiFact (PF) Florida on Governor Rick Scott who’s not implementing /planning for the new healthcare law because he says “it’s not the law of the land (yet).”

PolitiFact Florida found Rick Scott “False” on that statement, because:

The Governor's Office argues the law's not "the law of the land," because several significant provisions haven't yet taken effect. But that misses the point. It's telling that the governor has resisted implementing all parts of the law, not just those slated to take effect later or that have raised constitutional questions.

My conservative counterpart (Bryan White) contends that (1) it’s not PolitiFact’s point to make (or miss), it’s Scott’s, (2) there’s no evidence that the governor has resisted implementing all parts of the law, or has “blow[n] off the federal law” as he puts it, and (3) Scott “has a good argument that provisions that have yet to take effect are not the law of the land.”

Mandatory use of seat belts is used as a (very weak) example of “I don’t have to wear my seat belt until the law goes into effect.” But the PPACA with its multiple tenets and grants is not the same as seat belts. Moreover, just wait until the person not using the seat belt gets into a severe accident—I’d be interested to hear what the insurance company has to say when the victim says “I don’t have to wear my seat belt until the law goes into effect” as an excuse for not buckling up. That is, once over the whiplash and other more serious injuries that occurred because he wasn’t wearing his seat belt.

Nevertheless, let’s start with the first item. Has Rick Scott missed the point? Is the PPACA not the law of the land until its significant provisions take effect—namely, the insurance mandate portion? Note, Scott has made a self-contradicting statement: he says it’s NOT the law of the land because he is certain the Supremes will overturn it. But if it’s not the law the law of the land, how can it be overturned?

Lil White Lies: Parlaying PolitiFact

Sometimes I get the impression that my conservative counterpart is downright desperate in his search for finding anything, ANYTHING that he can relegate to the “Politi-Flubs” category on his blog and can be magnified colossally out of proportion. I’ve even seen other Facebook commenters suggest, as I did some time ago, that Bryan was a disgruntled ex-employee of the Tampa Bay (formerly St. Petersburg) Times because of his relentless, unforgiving mission to discredit PolitiFact.

Here we have one more example of his making a mountain out of a molehill on a recent PolitiFact (PF) ruling on John Stemberger, beginning with this comment on Facebook, along with a blog post fleshing out this formula: 

Is PolitiFact for real?

X makes statement S.

Y quotes statement S, attributing it to X.

PolitiFact rates statement S, applies the rating to Y.

I looked it all over and composed this lengthy post in response at PolitiFact’s Facebook page:

While I can understand what Bryan White is trying to convey with his algebraic approach, I’m not totally persuaded by his conclusion that it’s a flub (as he stated in his blog). The link to the conservative Florida Family Policy Council Blog has an article which says right at the top it is “by John Stemberger.” He is a known Conservative. The fellow Stemberger quotes, Wayne Grudem, is an evangelical Christian , and if you read the reviews of the book which contains the quote Stemberger is using, it appears he is a Michele Bachman-type Conservative as well (“Grudem's theology can be located near the most conservative end of the theological spectrum”…” He consciously avoids interaction with non-conservative sources…” ). The question becomes who should PF Florida name as the person they are ruling on….should it be Stemberger, the blog itself or Grudem? Often PF asks for sources: does this mean when the person names their source (whether from a direct statement or in something they published), PF is obliged to rule on the source instead? Stemberger is listed in the PF ruling as being one of the 35 sources, having been interviewed November 10-17. I don’t know if that means there were multiple interviews with him during that time period, so is it possible they told him he was being ruled on, and/or he agreed to it?

PF Florida could have said conservative blogger “John Stemberger” (as it did) or a post in a conservative blog “Florida Family Policy Council” (as authored in the title by John Stemberger) or conservative Evangelical “writer Wayne Grudem” (as quoted in conservative blog Florida Family Policy Council by conservative blogger John Stemberger). Which one should it be, how important is the distinction?

And of course, we have the damned if PF does, damned if PF doesn’t scenario popping up as well. If PF Florida made the ruling on Wayne Grudem (as quoted from the Stemberger blog) that would be called a flub with the complaint that it should have been Stemberger, since PF tends to focus on the “web” and this was a book.

Is it PolitiFact’s call to make rulings on obscure religious books or just evaluate the person using it as a source in a blog that’s been (recently) making the rounds in Florida, the blog of an organization in opposition to a vice (gambling) used by the government to raise funds in lieu of taxes? (Well, it is sort of a tax when you think about it, but I won't get into that here.)

As far as Bryan’s argument with regard to demographics, and the use of the plural, I would use his own defense of “when Conservatives or Republicans say something which would be interpreted similarly” that it’s perfectly fair and reasonable to assume that “poorest segment” and “poorest segments” were synonymous terms in the context of the sentence. In other words, it should be obvious that Grudem had a “had a poverty-level demographic in mind.” That his claim it was less than a “charitable” interpretation by PolitiFact assumes an amount of detail which Grudem should have clarified. With 34 other sources than Stemberger, it appears they tried to verify it, but what they found contradicted his claims.

In addition, while he stressed the plural of the word segments, he ignored the comparative (as a superlative) of what the segment consisted of, poorest (not poor or poorer). This means those with the least wealth, or the most poor. If Grudem said “poorer segments” Bryan would have had more of a case, for this would assume a larger demographic. But “poorest” was more than adequate for PolitiFact’s focus.

Bryan is like the Newt Gingrich of PolitiFact Detractors. He likes to use elaborate arguments which seem intimidating by their intellectualism, but fall apart under closer scrutiny.

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:

Sidebar: Cheaper by the politi-Dozen

PolitiFact Florida explains Rick Scott’s change in position on the Florida state budget for education as follows, in this ruling from February: (italics added for emphasis)

Scott's two-year spending plan would shrink the overall state budget from $70.3 billion to $65.9 billion in 2011-2012 and to $63.3 billion in 2012-2013. Cuts were expected almost everywhere -- except in the area of education, where Scott has said that funding would remain the same.

At least, that's what people thought.

Scott's proposed budget for next year includes billions of dollars in education cuts. …Some of that loss is offset by having teachers contribute 5 percent to their retirement and by the inclusion of temporary federal education dollars. Still, per-student funding would shrink if Scott's budget is ultimately approved…

The PolitiFact partnership paper of the ruling's writer Aaron Sharockman, the Miami Herald, called it Flip-flop Number One in an article entitled “Budget Shows 4 Rick Scott Flip Flops in 1 day” which was linked to the St. Petersburg Times under the title “Rick Scott’s Budget Flip Flops.”

But Sharockman called it a False under the Truth-O-Meter.

PolitiFact explains the Flip-O-Meter this way:

Like our Truth-O-Meter, the Flip-O-Meter begins with good journalism. When a candidate is accused of flipping, reporters and researchers examine the candidates' statements and voting records. Have they hedged their words over time? Shifted their tone? Changed their voting patterns?

Then, we rate whether the candidate has truly flipped:

    No Flip - No substantial change of position. The candidate has been consistent.

    Half Flip - A partial change of position or inconsistent statements.

    Full Flop - A major reversal of position; a complete flip-flop.

We are not making a value judgment about flip-flopping. Some people say it shows inconsistent principles and lack of backbone. Others say it's just pragmatism and willingness to compromise.

As we did with the Truth-O-Meter, our goal with the Flip-O-Meter is to provide you with a helpful tool so you can make a more informed decision when you vote.

Well, this helpful tool is telling me that Rick Scott changed his position--he flipped. In fact, a “full flop”. . Sharockman examined his statements and found he hedged his words:

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).