Grading PolitiFact *Liberal*-Style: Yes, Scott Walker is #1 "Liar"

A PolitiFact (PF) New Jersey fact-check on Loretta Weinberg, the state senate majority leader, done on June 7, seems to have slipped through my conservative counterpart’s bias-searching fingers, because I’m sure if he had read it he would be quoting it (besides having a major cow!) liberally throughout both his anti-PolitiFact blogs. For Bill Adair, the head of PolitiFact, came right out and directly addressed his biggest complaint of why he despises the Truth-o-Meter concept and what he believes is the reason for its alleged “bias.”

Weinberg said that Scott Walker of Wisconsin topped a list of the  five “Lie - en Governors" according to PolitiFact, and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie was also part of the “top five.” PolitiFact rated this statement “False” and included an interview with PolitiFact Manager Bill Adair, who made this very interesting comment:

"It's fine if people want to use our report cards to compare the records of people we fact-check. But it's important to be accurate about what those report cards say and what they don't," Adair said. "The report cards provide a tally of the claims we chose to check. But it's not accurate to say the report cards indicate who ‘told the most lies.’ We are journalists who choose our fact-checks based on what is newsworthy. We are not social scientists and are not using any kind of random sample to select statements to check."

But did Uppity Wisconsin, the source of Weinberg’s information, have it right? Here’s how PolitiFact explains what they did:

So what is Weinberg talking about?

The state senator’s statement was based on a list posted on the liberal blog Uppity Wisconsin.

The list ranked governors fact-checked at least five times by PolitiFact by the percentage of True and Mostly True ratings they received.

Walker had the lowest combined percentage of those two rulings, according to the June 1 blog post. The post concluded that "Walker is the #1 most dishonest governor in America."

Christie took fourth place among the "top five most dishonest governors in America" with 38 percent of his PolitiFact rulings earning True or Mostly True.

Uppity Wisconsin simply added the percentages of Trues and Mostly Trues, and came up with Scott Walker of Wisconsin at Number One with a combined percentage of 22 percent, followed by Rick Perry of Texas and Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island both at 25%, Chris Christie of New Jersey at 38%, and lastly Bob McDonnell of Virginia at 44%. Uppity Wisconsin ignored a lot of things in coming up with these numbers. Adair has a point that this does not accurately show “who told the most lies.” For example, in 2012, Rhode Island governor Lincoln Chaffee had only two rulings from PolitiFact. He’s only had eight fact-checks ever from PolitiFact. This is not a good measure of “truthiness” for someone with this few fact-checks.

The more fact-checks on someone, the more it should bolster the claim of measuring honesty. But it’s even hard to say what that “more” number is. I put together a list of those sitting governors with 20 or more fact-checks, and decided "the top five" should be those with 40 or more: governors Chris Christie (NJ), Rick Scott (FL), Rick Perry (TX), John Kasich (OH) and Scott Walker (WI). I threw out Governor Nathan Deal of Georgia (with 22) and Bob McDonnell of Virginia (with 23), simply because I wanted to measure those with the highest number of fact-checks who had been rated recently. Not a lot of politicians meet the “40” criteria, but it’s a better measure than basing it on fewer than 10 fact-checks.

The other problem with Uppity Wisconsin’s measure is it does not take into account the Half Trues, Mostly Falses, Falses and Pants on Fire categories in making its "honesty" measure. The Truth Index as calculated by PolitiFact places heavier weight on the Falses and Pants on Fire categories: the Pants on Fire is weighted 50% higher than a True, because (I’m guessing) it was felt emphasis should be put on the false statements.

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.

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.

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?

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.

Politi-Express Mostly True Review

It was difficult deciding how to classify or tag this post: it’s not a criticism of one of Sublime Bloviations’ Grading PolitiFact (PF) series, so it’s not a Lil White Lie; it’s not really about another PolitiFact Detractor. It’s not about the Politi-Score (although my conclusion takes it into account), but since it is about PolitiFact, it doesn’t really belong under the Sidebar tag. It’s also not Grading PolitiFact Liberal Style, as I’ve noted some Democrat rulings to be lacking. I’ve decided to include it under the PolitiFact Detractor category, as sort of my own PolitiFact Detraction.  It's also being called "Politi-Express" since this one post covers 13 rulings briefly and "expressly" instead of one detailed post for one ruling.

My goal was to look at “numbers” claims to see just how far they off they could be to make the grade as a “Mostly True” ruling. Here I am examining 13 Mostly True rulings of 8 Democrats/Liberals and 5 Republicans/Conservatives done during the first quarter of 2011. What I found was at least two designations or categories of Mostly True judgments. The first one is the one most subject to allegations of selection bias, and the most contentious as to the validity of the ruling--these are claims where the number is essentially correct, and often very close or right on the money, but is used to misrepresent or distort another point.  The second one is fairly straight-up numbers claims where the message or point is more in keeping with the number.

Saved by Zero. NewsMax, a conservative news website, sent out an e-mail in January stating: "The refusal of many federal employees to fly coach costs taxpayers $146 million annually.". PolitiFact ruled Mostly True, although the number was right on, off by “zero.” But their using the word “refusal”  is what pushed it from True to Mostly True.  PolitiFact:

The GAO's methodology doesn't delve into the question of the employee's motives when seeking a premium-class flight, so we think '"refusal" is too strong a word for Newsmax to use when describring how the federal employees reacted to the idea of flying coach.

Besides spelling describing “describring” there can be a number of reasons for not flying coach which would not come under “refusing”: if the travel arrangements were done at the last moment, it could be that first class was all that was available. There are also security considerations, which is why most businesses fly employees “business” class overseas. If the employee is carrying special, crucial equipment which was checked, first class would guarantee the “luggage” would not be lost, since that’s (usually) part of first class service. There may also be time considerations.

PolitiFact was generous (or should I say, charitable) in giving NewsMax a Mostly True on this one. But I also have mixed feelings on a Half True ruling.

Not so fair and balanced. Bill O’Reilly, who calls himself a political Independent, but we all know better, said on his Fox News show in February: "The right-to-work states have much lower level of unemployment than the union states do."

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:

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.

Mock the Dummies: How To Play Dummies For Fools (Florida Style)

Lil White Lies: "B" Stimulating (Updated)

Bryan White gave Shirl Kennedy a “B” grade this time as researcher. However, Becky Bowers, listed as writer and researcher, was graded “F”. So that begs the question (in Bryan’s logical world), if Kennedy got a “B” how did the research count for Bowers, since we have no way of knowing how much research she did compared to Shirl. What if Bowers actually did more of the research, and Kennedy only assisted in a minor perfunctory way? That means that Bryan’s “B” grade for Kennedy made no sense, because he would have had to lift up Bowers' grade of “F” to include her above-average “B” research.

Bryan said “Kennedy apparently provided research appropriate for that focus and presumably was not involved in framing the story.” So she got a “B” for having more than 23 sources to determine only if “no private sector jobs were created with the stimulus.” Well how about Bowers? That list of sources did not list with each one the name of the person who actually did the review of those sources, or calling or interviewing. He only dismissed Kennedy because she wasn’t involved in framing the story. That doesn’t mean that Bowers should get some credit.

It can also mean Bryan’s “special top super duper secret formula grade compilation system” may be zero or below 50 points for F. It’s not what at one time was 93-100=A, 85-92=B, 77-84=C, 70-76=D, and anything below 70 Failing or F. Or some instructors who just did 10 point increments. Bryan’s must be well below 70, or even down to zero for F-. So for Bowers, her grade from Bryan as writer was SO low that even averaging in the B for her research responsibility, still gave her an F. Or maybe Bryan’s grading system is…..not really what he says it is, it just reflects his seeming animosity toward PolitiFact and his own inherent right-leaning belief that PF is left-leaning.