PolitiFact: How can we rig this abortion fact check to help President Biden? Part II

Lo and behold, PolitiFact made changes to the fact check we critiqued in our previous post.

Recall that we lodged three main criticisms of PolitiFact's "Mostly True" confirmation of President Biden's claim the Supreme Court's Dobbs decision made the United States an outlier among developed nations.

1. PolitiFact cherry-picked its pool of "developed nations."
2. It misidentified "Great Britain" as a member of the G7, enabling it to ignore a Northern Ireland spanner in the works
3. It falsely stated members of the G7, except the United States, "have national laws or court decisions that allow access to abortion, with various restrictions."

PolitiFact partially fixed the second problem.

Fixing the second problem without fixing the third problem magnifies the third problem. And PolitiFact, again, failed to follow its own corrections policy.

Let's start with the "clarification" notice and work from there:

CLARIFICATION, June 27, 2022: This story has been clarified to reflect that the United Kingdom, which contains Northern Ireland, is a G-7 nation. It has also been updated to describe current abortion laws in Northern Ireland.

Note the "clarification" notice announces a clarification and an update.

What does PolitiFact's statement of principles prescribe for clarifications and updates?

Clarification:

Oops! PolitiFact's statement of principles offers no procedure for doing a clarification!

The either means that PolitiFact is following its principles because the principles allow it to do whatever it wants, or else it means that PolitiFact isn't really following a principle.

Update:

Updates – From time to time, we add additional information to stories and fact-checks after they’ve published, not as a correction but as a service to readers. Examples include a response from the speaker we received after publication (that did not change the conclusion of the report), or breaking news after publication that is relevant to the check. Updates can be made parenthetically within the text with a date, or at the end of the report. Updated fact-checks receive a tag of "Corrections and updates."

We think it clear that this policy calls for newly added "update" material within the original text to occur with clear cues to the reader where the material was added ("parenthetically within the text with a date"). Otherwise, the new material occurs at the end of the item after the update notice.

It's easier to find PolitiFact updates done incorrectly than ones done correctly. But this example shows an update done the right way:

 

The method shown communicates clearly to readers how the article changed.

This is infinitely more transparent than PolitiFact's common practice of an update notice at the end saying, in effect "We changed stuff in the story above on this date."

Understood correctly, PolitiFact corrected its story. It fixed its mistake in misleadingly identifying Great Britain as a member of the G7. And the "update" was not new information. It was information PolitiFact should have included originally but mistakenly did not.

The fact check continues to do readers a disservice by failing to inform them that the U.K. in 2019 forced Northern Ireland, via special legislation, to permit abortion. That still-missing fact contradicts PolitiFact's claim that members of the G7 other than the United States"have national laws or court decisions that allow access to abortion, with various restrictions." The legislation forcing Northern Ireland to permit legal abortion was not a national law, nor was it a court decision.

The law is specific to Northern Ireland.

We'll end with an image we created for Twitter. It's an image from the Internet Archive Wayback Machine, using its comparison feature. Text highlighted in blue was changed from the original text, and we added red lines under the part of PolitiFact's fact check that remains false.

PolitiFact: How can we rig this abortion fact check to help President Biden?

Day by day, it's amazing to watch the kind of material PolitiFact publishes as supposedly "not biased" fact-checking.

From yesterday, June 24, we have this (red X added):

In what respect was President Biden claiming the United States counts as an outlier among "developed nations"? Here's how PolitiFact presented the president's statement:

"With this decision, the conservative majority of the Supreme Court shows how extreme it is, how far removed they are from the majority of this country," Biden said a couple hours after the ruling was released on June 24. "They have made the United States an outlier among developed nations in the world."

How far removed is the Supreme Court from the majority in this country? If we start with the amount of legal education, the gulf between does seem obvious. But Biden surely meant the Court's attitude toward abortion, even though the Court was faced with ruling on what U.S. law says about abortion, and not how to transform popular American attitudes into national law.

And how had the Court "made the United States an  outlier among developed nations of the world"? PolitiFact has published items showing it at least understands that abortion law varies widely among comparably developed nations. If it's "Half True" that "'39 out of 42 (countries) in Europe have more restrictive abortion laws' than Mississippi" then how is PolitiFact supposed to pull Biden's fat out of the fire on this one?

PolitiFact called in the Spin Team (our term!) of Madison Czopek and Tom Kertscher. The team developed a PolitiFantastic interpretation of Biden's claim:

While the high court’s decision leaves in place state laws that permit abortion, it removes the national right to an abortion — something that is widely guaranteed by laws or court rulings in other developed nations.

So ... President Biden was just saying that Court made the United States, home of the 10th amendment, an outlier on the basis of  its newfound lack of an explicit or de facto national abortion access law?

But what other developed nations have something like the 10th amendment in their constitutions? If they lack such a thing then isn't this a pointless exercise? The U.S. is an outlier because of the structure of its federalist system, not simply because of the Court.

Damn those torpedoes! PolitiFact's going full speed ahead!

Would you believe ...

... no mention of 'federalism'?

PolitiFact came oh-so-close to unraveling the mystery of the missing federal law setting abortion policy nationally in the United States:

The high court ruled 6-3 to uphold a restrictive Mississippi law and 5-4 to reverse Roe, with the majority opinion saying "the Constitution makes no express reference to a right to obtain an abortion." The decision ended nearly 50 years of federally protected access to abortion and returned power to individual states to set their own laws.

That means access to abortion varies widely in the U.S.

 Correct, PolitiFact. It's almost like the European Union that way.

In the EU, Malta is the only country where abortion is still completely prohibited. But Poland has a near-total ban in place, and many EU states have a range of legal barriers to abortion, such as mandatory counselling, waiting periods between a request and the abortion, third party consent, low upper time limits and limited legal grounds that force many women to travel to other countries, and all the increased restrictions on travel due to Covid-19, especially where access to abortion pills and self-managed abortion have not been made available.

 It's going to be really something when these fact checkers discover the concept of federalism.

... 'developed nations' don't need to be restricted to just the G7?

PolitiFact cleverly removed Malta and Poland from the "developed nations" list by restricting that list to the G7:

Developed nations consisting of the world’s leading economies are sometimes referred to as the G7, or the Group of Seven, which includes the U.S. and six other industrialized nations. Unlike the U.S., those six have national laws or court decisions that allow access to abortion, with various restrictions.

Would you believe PolitiFact has no consistent history of confining "developed nations" to the G7?

... 'Great Britain' as a G7 nation?

Would you believe Great Britain isn't listed as a G7 nation even though PolitiFact includes "Great Britain" on its list?

Would you believe that Great Britain isn't the same thing as the United Kingdom with respect to abortion law?

Great Britain technically refers to the main British island, made up of England, Scotland and Wales. "Great Britain" is sometimes used as a synonym for the United Kingdom, but if PolitiFact meant it that way then it should have pointed out that the U.K. only passed a law later resulting in liberalized abortion law in Northern Ireland in 2019.

"U.K." literally means "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland."

So the United Kingdom was the G7 outlier until 2019. The G7 went with no outlier for a couple of years before the SCOTUS struck down the Roe v. Wade precedent.

Why did PolitiFact miss all this stuff?

Probably because PolitiFact is biased. Very probably.

MetaFact Group: PolitiFact “fact-checks” accurate reporting about study showing vaccines provide less immunity than prior infections

A relative newcomer to the fact-checking the fact-checkers club, MetaFact Group, today published an on-target item showing yet another example of a misleading PolitiFact technique.

It's PolitiFact's method of putting words, or at least an implied argument, into the mouth of another.

PolitiFact has rated as “half true” a headline by the Gateway Pundit that accurately summarizes the findings of a study by Maccabi Healthcare and Tel Aviv University, showing those vaccinated against COVID-19 were 13 times more likely to still be infected than those not vaccinated (but recovered from covid--Ed.). The study states “SARS-CoV-2-naïve vaccinees had a 13.06-fold (95% CI, 8.08 to 21.11) increased risk for breakthrough infection with the Delta variant compared to those previously infected.”

PolitiFact said the headline was misleading because the study had not yet passed peer review and the headline also supposedly implied that it was a good idea not to receive the vaccine (bold emphasis added):

The headline accurately reflects some of the study’s findings but ignores the study’s limitations, including that only one vaccine was tested, and that other studies have found that COVID-19 poses much greater danger to people who have not been vaccinated.

Without that context, the headline leaves the impression that it’s safer to get COVID-19 and hope to recover than to try to avoid it by getting vaccinated. That’s not true.

This is the same PolitiFact that recently told us that fossil fuel power plants kill millions of birds annually without informing its readers that the estimate was based almost entirely on predictions of how many birds climate change might kill in the future. The research paper averaged predicted future bird deaths out over a 40-year period. Because science. See more details at Bryan's Zebra Fact Check site.

It's okay for PolitiFact fact checkers to skimp on context. But it's not okay for you, me, or Gateway Pundit.

MetaFact Group also made a critical point about the legitimacy of the Gateway Pundit article:

(K)nowing that natural immunity maybe [sic] superior to vaccine-based immunity is a relevant point of discussion for a university considering whether it can mandate its students, faculty and staff take the COVID-19 vaccines.

Read the article at Meta Fact Group and bookmark the site.

PolitiFact accidentally tells the truth about the Hunter Biden laptop

PolitiFact tried so hard to bury the Hunter Biden laptop story in a June 14, 2021 story that it ended up accidentally telling the truth about it.

Donald Trump claimed that he was "right about everything" and PolitiFact published its article to contest that claim item by item. Trump said the "Biden laptop was real," apparently trying to make the point that the Hunter Biden laptop story the mainstream media largely ignored in the runup to the 2020 election was truly based on Hunter Biden's laptop.

PolitiFact's telling:

'Hunter Biden’s laptop was real'

It was real in the sense that it exists, but it didn’t prove much. 

Trump allies obtained a laptop or copies of a laptop during the 2020 campaign that allegedly belonged to Hunter Biden, President Joe Biden’s son. Over time, there has been less doubt that the laptop did in fact belong to Hunter Biden, though how the laptop came to be obtained by Trump allies and Trump-friendly media outlets is unclear.

Conservative media have done quite a bit of reporting on how the laptop ended up in Rudy Giuliani's hands, not to mention those of the FBI. We find it interesting that PolitiFact declined to report on or link to any of those details. Instead of providing those details, PolitiFact gave us Hunter Biden's side of things and a link to that story:

Hunter Biden has been open about his history as a recovering drug addict; he’s said it’s possible the laptop was stolen from him.

Did you know the FBI is investigating Hunter Biden's business dealing with China? No? PolitiFact apparently doesn't, either. Or at least PolitiFact figured it's not relevant to this story

PolitiFact wraps up the section on Biden's laptop by accidentally telling the truth:

Nothing from the laptop has revealed illegal or unethical behavior by Joe Biden as vice president with regard to his son’s tenure as a director for Burisma, a Ukraine-based natural gas company.

Though PolitiFact's statement isn't even necessarily true in itself, it tells a series of truths in what it doesn't say. It doesn't say whether the laptop shows illegal or unethical behavior as vice president not regarding Hunter Biden's (apparently well-paid) tenure with Burisma.

What can't we fit through the loophole PolitiFact leaves open?

PolitiFact's statement is compatible with each of the following prospective assertions about what the laptop shows:

• Illegal behavior by Joe Biden while not serving as vice president
• Unethical behavior by Joe Biden while not serving as vice president
• Illegal behavior by Vice President Biden unrelated to Hunter Biden's role as a Burisma employee
• Unethical behavior by VP Biden unrelated to Hunter Biden's role as a Burisma employee

We're not saying any of the statements on our list is necessarily true. We're saying PolitiFact's disclaimer about what the Hunter Biden laptop doesn't show is so laughably narrow that it's incriminating.

Why?

Why would any news organization, let alone a fact-checking organization, include such a preposterous caveat in a story? It looks designed to mislead readers. 

If it's just simple incompetence, it's of the kind that looks much worse than simple incompetence. It looks like an attempt to deceive readers.

That's a bad look.

Typo correction June 15, 2021: Bursima=.Burisma

Correction June 16, 2021: Fixed some flawed text formatting and changed "It doesn't say whether the laptop shows illegal or unethical behavior as vice president regarding Hunter Biden's (apparently well-paid) tenure with Burisma" to "It doesn't say whether the laptop shows illegal or unethical behavior as vice president not regarding Hunter Biden's (apparently well-paid) tenure with Burisma." Our apologies for any confusion our error caused.

Does PolitiFact use consistent standards? No.

PolitiFact misleads when it tells its readers "we are applying the same standards to both sides." PolitiFact's methodology leaves open myriad ways to put fingers on the scale. The scale has fingerprints all over it.

In this article we'll focus on yet another example of uneven application of standards. We'll look at two PolitiFact fact checks in the category of health care, one from a Republican and one from a Democrat.

The Republican

On Nov. 30, 2020 PolitiFact published a fact check of Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.) looking at her claim that her healthcare plan would protect Americans with preexisting conditions. PolitiFact issued a "False" judgment on Loeffler's claim.

Why the "False" rating?

PolitiFact's subheading suggested a lack of proof led to the rating: "No proof that Kelly Loeffler will ensure protections for preexisting conditions." 

Aside from the lack of proof, PolitiFact noted that Loeffler's plan proposed using something like high risk pools to help people get their preexisting conditions covered. PolitiFact's "If Your Time is Short" story summary gave Loeffler credit for protections that fall short of those offered by the Affordable Care Act (second bullet):

If Your Time is short

• The GOP Georgia senator’s new plan offers no details on how protections for people with preexisting health conditions would be ensured.

• Two provisions in the plan indicate protections will be less than those provided by the Affordable Care Act, experts say.

 

Why did the protections in Loeffler's plan count for nothing on PolitiFact's "Truth-O-Meter"? The special insurance groups designed for those with preexisting conditions couldn't even budget the rating up to "Mostly False"? Did PolitiFact assume that when Loeffler said "Americans" she meant "all Americans"? If so, that rationale failed to find its way into the fact check.

The Democrat

People these days tend to know (using that term advisedly) that President Obama's "You can keep your plan" pledge received PolitiFact's "Lie of the Year" in 2013. They've tended to forget, with help from PolitiFact, that the claim never received a Truth-O-Meter rating below "Half True." PolitiFact rated Obama's claim twice, in 2009 and in 2012. Both times it received a "Half True" rating. 

We'll use the 2012 rating to see how PolitiFact's application of standards compared to the ones it used for Loeffler.

PolitiFact's summary paragraphs encapsulate its reasoning:

Obama has a reasonable point: His health care law does take pains to allow Americans to keep their health plan if they want to remain on it. But Obama suggests that keeping the insurance you like is guaranteed.

In reality, Americans are not simply able to keep their insurance through thick and thin. Even before the law has taken effect, the rate of forced plan-switching among policyholders every year is substantial, and the CBO figures suggest that the law could increase that rate, at least modestly, even if Americans on balance benefit from the law’s provisions. We rate Obama’s claim Half True.

PolitiFact says Obama has a reasonable point. PolitiFact made no mention in its fact check of Loeffler to detect whether she had a reasonable point that her health care plan offered protections for preexisting conditions. Is that the same standard?

PolitiFact says Obama "suggested" that keeping one's preferred insurance is guaranteed. That might parallel the assumption that Loeffler was saying her plan guarantees coverage for preexisting conditions. PolitiFact's ruling suggests it made that assumption, though the fact check does not say so specifically. But if Obama was similarly making a guarantee, how did he skate with a "Half True" instead of the "False" rating Loeffler's claim received? Is that the same standard?

And speaking of guarantees, remember that PolitiFact docked Loeffler for not having proof that her plain would cover (all?) those with preexisting conditions. What proof did Obama's plan offer? Apparently none, as PolitiFact noted a Congressional Budget Office assessment saying the ACA would accelerate force churn of insurance plans. Is that the same standard?

We say the same standard did not apply to both. If Loeffler's "False" stems from her leading people to falsely believe her plan guarantees coverage for preexisting conditions then Obama's similar misleading would seem to equally earn a "False" rating. Or, both Loeffler and Obama could receive a "Half True" rating.

That they received quite different ratings shows the application of differing standards.

PolitiFact claims it's "Half True" Georgia senator wants to get rid of health care during the COVID-19 pandemic

We found an item that fits beautifully in our traditional category "Words Matter, Except When They Don't" as well as our new category "Rubberstamps for Democrats."

Behold:

Warnock's exaggeration on this claim qualifies as Trumpian. There's no indication at all, as PolitiFact admits, that Sen. Loeffler wants to get rid of health care ("per se") during the middle of a pandemic. Warnock is talking about Loeffler's (alleged) support of a lawsuit brought by the states that seeks to overturn the ACA as unconstitutional.

Most of the deception in Warnock's claim comes from two twists. 

First, Warnock translates getting rid of Obamacare into getting rid of health care. That's a monstrous stretch. Obamacare counts as an insurance program, not a health care program. Getting rid of Obamacare gets rid of some insurance coverage. It does not get rid of health care.

Second, the structure of Warnock's claim would tell the audience that Loeffler would prefer getting rid of health care during "the middle of a pandemic" to getting rid of health care at some other time (such as not "in the middle of a pandemic." But that's not really at issue. The issue would be whether she believes the ACA is unconstitutional. We shouldn't expect her reading of the law to change during a pandemic.

Even if Warnock were to claim Loeffler favors "getting rid of the Afforable Care Act in the middle of a pandemic" the claim would only count as roughly half true*. Gratuitously allowing "the middle of a pandemic" to stretch from the beginning to the end of the pandemic, we have no real evidence that Loeffler particularly wants the ACA to end during that span. What we (might) have is Loeffler carrying the same opinion about the constitutionality of the ACA regardless of a pandemic.

If the Supreme Court rules on the ACA lawsuit in 2021, as expected, we may be looking at the tail end of the pandemic and not its "middle," and that's assuming the SCOTUS orders a precipitous end to the ACA. There's no particular reason to expect that.

Some experts consider it highly unlikely that the Affordable Care Act would be overturned. And it is important to note that even if the Affordable Care Act is ruled unconstitutional, these impacts would not necessarily take effect the instant that the Supreme Court hands down the verdict.

If the Affordable Care Act was ruled unconstitutional, it would set off a chain of events in the political and legal spheres that are hard to predict in advance. Very likely, Congress and the Administration would take steps shortly after the decision to try to stabilize the situation.

Warnock's ad is a logic-free misleading appeal to emotion. She wants to take health care away from people who are dying! As political ads go, it's about as low as they come.

PolitiFact's "Half True" rating of Warnock's misleading bull hockey serves as just another illustration of PolitiFact's marked leftward lean. It's such a wildly generous "Half True" that it counts as a rubberstamp.

Narrative matters to PolitiFact far more than words (pun not intended, but I'll keep it).

*Afters

There's a third deception in this fact check, in that Warnock and PolitiFact pull a big switcheroo. 

Loeffler voted against a bill that would keep the Department of Justice from agreeing with lawsuits seeking to overturn the ACA. Warnock and PolitiFact take that as support for the lawsuit, in the absence of other evidence. But maybe Loeffler simply did not want to see Congress try to tie the hands of the constitutionally co-equal executive branch in its dealings with the judicial branch. Loeffler's support for the DoJ's ability to choose its positions on issues would not directly equate to agreeing with the DoJ position on those issues.

PolitiFact glosses over the discrepancy.

That's the kind of thing a fact checker might do if politically biased.

PolitiFact, misspellings and minor errors

We have noted that PolitiFact has over the years tried to minimize the impression that it often publishes things that need correction. And PolitiFact's lengthy description of its corrections policy contains loopholes that give its editors a hand in lessening the appearance of fact checker error.

The Case in Point

PolitiFact published a Nov. 10, 2020 PolitiSplainer telling readers how two incumbent Republican senators were attacking Republicans in the Georgia state government over that state's election recount.

PolitiFact reported that the senators, David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, were "facing tough recall elections."

When PolitiFact tweeted out that misinformation to its Twitter audience someone quickly noticed the mistake:

https://twitter.com/punsultant/status/1326286056690503683

They are facing runoff elections, not recall elections 🙄

— Art Allen (@punsultant) November 10, 2020

 

Art Allen was right. Neither Republican senator faces a recall election.

Allen wasn't the only person to highlight the mistake. But the mistake stayed on in PolitiFact's tweets and in the box summarizing the article at the main PolitiFact website (highlights added for emphasis):

To be clear, a recall election is not the same thing as a runoff election.

By November 16 PolitiFact had corrected its error, yet without admitting any wrongdoing.

The page received no "corrections or updates" tag and features no correction or update notice.

How can that be, given that PolitiFact has, according to its editor, one of the most robust and detailed corrections policies in journalism?

It's easy-peasy. And that's because the robust details in the corrections policy are ambiguous. The details make readers think PolitiFact is transparent about its mistakes when in reality the policy features (intentional?) loopholes that allow the fact checker to obscure its history of embarrassing mistakes.

The mistake on "recall elections" was likely treated under this section of PolitiFact's policy:

Typos, grammatical errors, misspellings – We correct typos, grammatical errors, misspellings, transpositions and other small errors without a mark of correction or tag and as soon as they are brought to our attention.

By counting the use of "recall" where "runoff" was meant as a typo, grammatical error, misspelling or other small error, PolitiFact ends up deceiving its audience about the robustness of its corrections policy. When we read (in the same statement of principles) that PolitiFact corrects its errors "with appropriate transparency" we expect that to include an admission when PolitiFact finds itself guilty of spreading misinformation.

PolitiFact undeniably spread misinformation. People who saw only PolitiFact's early tweets highlighting its article were misinformed that Loeffler and Perdue were facing recall elections. Those whose time was short and read only the article summary were similarly misinformed. And PolitiFact, contrary to its commitment under the principles of the International Fact-Checking Network, which it professes to follow, took no steps to make sure those who were misled had the corrected version brought to their attention.

We publish our corrections policy and follow it scrupulously. We correct clearly and transparently in line with our corrections policy, seeking so far as possible to ensure that readers see the corrected version.

That's how these Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists operate. This has always been part of their approach to corrections.

It's embarrassing to mix up "runoff election" with "recall election." Therefore, PolitiFact buries its mistake as though it merely mixed up "its" with "it's."

"Recall" is not a misspelling of "runoff" any more than "Trump" is a misspelling of "Biden." If every wrong word can count as a misspelling then journalists can completely do away with correction notices under a policy like PolitiFact's.

Correction Nov. 16, 2020: In the fifth-to-last paragraph we committed an error similar to PolitiFact's stating that PolitiFact "misinformed that Loeffler and Perdue were facing runoff elections." In fact, PolitiFact misinformed its readers that Loeffler and Perdue were facing recall elections and not runoff elections. Hat tip to Matthew Hoy for catching the error and alerting us to its existence. The problem is fixed with this update.

PolitiFact Wisconsin: The Future is Now!

A May 2, 2018 fact check from PolitiFact Wisconsin uses projected numbers from the 2018-2019 budget year to assess a claim that Wisconsinites are now paying twice as much for debt service on road work as they were paying in 2010-2011 before Republican Scott Walker took over as Wisconsin's governor.

Democratic candidate for governor Kelda Helen Roys and her interviewer used a 22-23 percent figure to represent current spending on road work debt service in Wisconsin.

PolitiFact Wisconsin gave both a pass on their fudging of the facts, but lowered Roys' rating from "True" down to "Mostly True" because the numbers used were mere estimates:

The figure is projected to reach 20.9 percent during the second year of the current two-year state budget Walker signed, which is nearly doubling.

With the caveat that the figure for the current budget is an estimate, we rate Roys’ statement Mostly True.

We think that reasoning would work better as a fact check of Roys' claim if the estimated number represented what Wisconsin is paying now for debt service on its road work. Unless PolitiFact Wisconsin is saying the future is now, the estimate for budget year 2017-2018 would better fit the bill.

PolitiFact Wisconsin reported the 2017-2018 estimate as 20 percent but used the higher figure for the following budget year to judge Roys' accuracy.

And that was just one of three ways PolitiFact Wisconsin massaged the Democrat's statement into a closer semblance of the truth.

What is "Just Basic Road Repair and Maintenance"?

Roys' claimed the debt service was "for just basic road repair and maintenance," which would apparently exclude new construction. PolitiFact tested her claim using the numbers for the transportation-related share of the budget (bold emphasis added):

In analyzing 2017-’19 two-year state budget enacted by Walker and the GOP-controlled Legislature, the bureau provided figures on the total of all transportation debt service as a percentage of gross transportation fund revenue -- in other words, what portion of transportation revenue for road work would be going to paying off debt.

PolitiFact's other truth-massage credited Roys with making clear that the debt service increase she spoke of was the debt service amount as a percentage of total spending on roads. Aside from the fact Roys talked about "just basic road repair and maintenance," she offered listeners no clue that she used the same measure PolitiFact Wisconsin used to fact check her claim.

The clue that likely drove PolitiFact to check the debt service as a percentage of road work expenses came from WisconsinEye senior producer Steve Walters, who conducted the interview of Roys. Walter referred no less than twice to a "22 to 23 percent" figure for debt service during the interview.

Since that number came from Walters, PolitiFact Wisconsin apparently felt no need to fact check its accuracy.

Does Some Road Construction Go Beyond 'Basic'?

We think the phrase "basic road repair and maintenance" may leave some members of the audience with the impression that more involved road work such as replacing bridges would balloon the cost of debt service even higher than described.

We found a page run by the Wisconsin Department of Transportation describing its road projects. Here's the description of one costing $9.6 million:

Description of work: The project consists of a full reconstruction of WIS 55 (Delanglade Street) from I-41 to Lawe Street in the city of Kaukauna. Improvements will include roundabouts at the intersections of I-41 ramps, Maloney/Gertrude, and County OO. New traffic signals will be installed at County J/WIS 55/WIS 96, and bike/pedestrian accommodations will be added throughout the project limits along WIS 55. Other work includes storm sewer, sanitary sewer, water main, sidewalks, retaining walls, street lighting, and incidentals.

It appears to us that PolitiFact Wisconsin simply assumed that all the described work rightly fits under Roys' description.

We're skeptical that such assumptions hold a rightful place among the best practices for fact checkers.

Summary

If we assume that Roys was talking about all expenses attached to road work, and also assume she was talking about the increase in the estimated dollar amount of debt service in raw dollars, her estimate is off by only about 7 percent. In that case, PolitiFact Wisconsin did not really need to use future estimates to justify Roys' statement about how much Wisconsin is spending now. It could have just used the measure Roys' described and rated that against the estimate for this year's spending.

But a fact checker could easily have justified asking Roys to define what she meant by "basic road repair and maintenance" and then using that definition to grade her accuracy. A better fact check would likely result.

We wonder if Roys would need to join the Republican Party to make that happen.

PolitiFact Wisconsin and the Worry-O-Meter

PolitiFact Wisconsin had no representation in our article on the worst 17 PolitiFact fact checks of 2017.

A May 18, 2018 fact check of Republican Leah Vukmir should help ensure PolitiFact Wisconsin makes the list for 2018.

Vukmir, a Republican looking for an opportunity to run against Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.) in the 2018 election cycle, has used a hyperbolic ad campaign to paint Baldwin as weak on terrorism. Vukmir said Baldwin worried more about the architect of the 9-11 terrorist attacks than confirming Gina Haspel to head the CIA.

The key to Democrat opposition to the Haspel nomination stemmed from Haspel's involvement in the enhanced interrogation program, which included the technique of waterboarding. The CIA released a disciplinary review saying Haspel had no involvement in the decision to use enhanced interrogation, but that she simply carried out the orders she was issued.

PolitiFact Wisconsin adroitly skipped over all that and took the liberty of re-interpreting Vukmir's claim:

Does U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin have so much more concern for a 9/11 terrorist, compared to the president’s nominee to run the CIA, that she would vote against the nominee?

Vukmir's claim was more simple than PolitiFact Wisconsin's creative paraphrase (source: PolitiFact):

Tammy and her party are more interested, and they’re more worried about, the mastermind of 9/11 -- the individual that plotted and ultimately killed over 3,000 Americans on our soil. And she‘s more worried about those individuals than to support a very strong woman with a track record to be the head of the CIA.

Note that Vukmir did not say anything about what motivated Baldwin to withhold support for Haspel.

We suspect PolitiFact Wisconsin counts as a minority for its inability to figure out Vukmir's message: Opposing Haspel's nomination based merely on her following orders within the CIA hampers the CIA's ability to do its job effectively. Imagine working at the CIA and thinking one must second-guess the orders one receives to have a realistic shot at one day leading the CIA.

PolitiFact Wisconsin's fact check spent not a word on that angle of the story, sticking instead to its own idea that Vukmir must show that Baldwin personally showed significant worry about Khalid Sheik Mohammed in order to earn a rating better than "Pants on Fire."

Farcical Fact-Checking

To fact check what Vukmir actually said, PolitiFact Wisconsin would have needed evidence not only showing Baldwin's level of worry for Mohammed but also her level of worry for Haspel's nomination. Otherwise there's no baseline for determining one is greater than the other.

After all, Vukmir clearly made a claim comparing the two.

And how does one assess levels of worry without asserting an opinion? One might go by what a person said, but that assumes an entirely forthright subject. We don't know the answer. And PolitiFact offered no evidence it has an answer.

PolitiFact's approach was preposterous from the outset. It showed no specific level of worry over Mohammed and no specific level of worry over the Haspel nomination. And yet concluded that one was not lower than the other.

Vukmir's statement was best interpreted as hyperbole expressing the damage to CIA operations stemming from refusing a leadership role to a fully qualified woman for nothing more than following orders associated with the enhanced interrogation program--a program that the CIA described to leading congressional members of both parties without apparent objection at the time.

PolitiFact says it grants license for hyperbole. Exceptions doubtless stem, as we've said before, from Republicans trying to use hyperbole without a license.

• Is the statement rooted in a fact that is verifiable? We don’t check opinions, and we recognize that in the world of speechmaking and political rhetoric, there is license for hyperbole.

PolitiFact says it doesn't rate opinions. We suppose PolitiFact is entitled to its own opinion.


After Vukmir made her claim about Baldwin, Baldwin ended up voting in opposition to the Haspel nomination.

PolitiFact: It's 'Half True' and 'Mostly True' that President Obama doubled the debt

Twitterer Ely Brit (@RealElyBritt) tweeted out this comparison of past PolitiFact ratings on March 17, 2018:

Does @PolitiFact have #TrumpDerangementSyndrome? @PolitiFactBias

It sure looks like it ... pic.twitter.com/m4CqQ8JENp

— Ely Brit 🇺🇸 (@RealElyBritt) March 18, 2018

For the Trump fact check, PolitiFact came down hard on The Donald for placing blame too squarely on President Obama when Congress controls the federal government's purse strings.

On the other hand, it's hard to see how Sen. Paul eases up on placing the blame, unless he gets a bipartisan pass for blaming President Bush for the earlier debt increase.

Apart from that, neither Trump nor Paul received a "True" rating because Congress shares the blame for government spending.

Right, PolitiFact?

O-kay, then.



Correction 3/18/2018: Corrected transposed misspellings of Ely Brit's name. Our apologies to Brit. 
Correction 3/18/2018: Commenter YuriG pointed out that I (Bryan) used "deficit" in the headline, conflicting with the content of the post. Changed "deficit" to "debt" in the headline. Our thanks to YuriG for taking the time to point out the problem.

Newsbusters: "PolitiFact's Pretzel Twist for Democrat Gwen Moore: 'Mostly True,' But Not 'Literally Speaking'"

Tim Graham of Newsbusters scores a hit on PolitiFact Wisconsin with his Aug. 2, 2017 item on a rating from PolitiFact Wisconsin.

Rep. Gwen Moore (D--Wis) said, according to PolitiFact, "If you’re killed at 31 years old like Dontre Hamilton, who was shot 14 times by police for resting on a park bench in Milwaukee, nursing home care is not your priority."

PolitiFact Wisconsin admitted Moore's statement was not literally true:

Literally speaking, Hamilton was not killed simply for resting on a bench. He was shot after striking an officer with the officer’s baton.

PolitiFact Wisconsin rated the false statement "Mostly True."

In PolitiFact Wisconsin's defense, it imagined into being a way of viewing Moore's statement as true:

But in making a rhetorical point, Moore is correct that Hamilton had done nothing to attract the attention of police but fall asleep in a park.

Bless PolitiFact's heart for relieving Moore of the responsibility for using appropriate words to make her supposed rhetorical point. Moore did not talk at all about simply "drawing the attention of police." She talked specifically about Hamilton being shot (14 times) "for resting on a park bench."

This case helps illustrate how PolitiFact's "star chamber" feels little constraint from its stated definitions for its "Truth-O-Meter" ratings. PolitiFact defines "Mostly True" as "The statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information."

In what manner was Moore's statement accurate without PolitiFact rewriting it to focus on the way Hamilton drew the attention of police?

If PolitiFact's "Truth-O-Meter" definitions were worth anything, then no false statement like Moore's would ever receive a rating of "Mostly True" or better. But it happens often.

Is it any wonder that people do not trust mainstream media fact checkers like PolitiFact?



Update March 24, 2019: Updated URL leading to PolitiFact's statement of principles. PolitiFact changed its statement of principles under a new URL. The old URL redirects to the new one. So we're now using the version from the Internet Archive from August 2017.

PolitiLies at PolitiFact Wisconsin II (Updated: PolitiFact amends)

In part one of "PolitiLies at PolitiFact Wisconsin," we shared our experience questioning PolitiFact's reporting from a fact check of U.S. Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-Wis.).

In part two, we will look at PolitiFact Wisconsin's response to having a clear error pointed out in one of its stories.

On May 11, 2017, PolitiFact Wisconsin published a "Pants on Fire" rating of U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan's claim that "Air Force pilots were going to museums to find spare parts over the last eight years."

PolitiFact issued the "Pants on Fire" ruling despite a Fox News report which featured an Air Force captain, identified by name, who said the Air Force had on seven occasions obtained parts for B-1 bombers from museums.

PolitiFact Wisconsin objected to the thin evidence, apparently including the failure of the report to identify any of the museums that allegedly served as parts repositories (bold emphasis added):

The only example Ryan’s office cited was a May 2016 Fox News article in which an Air Force captain said spare parts needed for a B-1 bomber at a base in South Dakota were taken from seven "museum aircraft" from around the country. The museums weren’t identified and no other details were provided.

Yet when we attempted to verify PolitiFact Wisconsin's reporting, we found the text version of the story said Capt. Travis Lytton (no other details were provided?) showed the Fox reporters a museum aircraft from which a part was stripped. Lytton also described the function of the part in the story (no other details were provided?).

The accompanying video showed a B-1 bomber situated next to the name of the museum: South Dakota Air and Space Museum.

If one of the seven museums was not the South Dakota Air and Space Museum, then the Fox News video was highly misleading. The viewer would conclude the South Dakota Air and Space Museum was one of the seven museums.

How did PolitiFact Wisconsin miss this information? And why, when Lytton was plainly identified in the Fox News report, did PolitiFact Wisconsin not try to contact Lytton to find out the names of the other museums?

"Readers who see an error should contact the writer or editor"

We like to contact the writer and the editor when we see an error.

In this case, we contacted writer Tom Kertscher and editor Greg Borowski (May 31, 2017):

Dear Tom Kertscher, Greg Borowski,
Your rating of Speaker Ryan's claim about the Air Force pulling parts from museum planes falsely claims that none of the seven museums were identified.

Yet the Fox News report said the Air Force officer showed reporters the museum plane from which a part was taken. And if you bothered to watch the video associated with the story, the name of the museum appears very plainly in front of the B-1 bomber the officer identified.

http://www.sdairandspacemuseum.com/

And if the names of the museums was a point worth mentioning, then why not contact the officer (identified by name in the Fox News report) and ask him? If he identified one of the museums, would he not identify the others?

After nearly a week, we have received no reply to our message and the PolitiFact Wisconsin fact check still features the same false information about the Fox News report.

Why?

Integrity?


Update June 10, 2017: On June 2017 we received a message from PolitiFact Wisconsin editor Greg Borowski. Borowski said he had not received our email message (we do not know if writer Tom Kertscher, to whom it was also sent, had the same experience). Borowski said after finding out about the criticism PolitiFact Wisconsin "added a note to the item."

PolitiFact Wisconsin removed two false statements from its fact check, one stating that the Fox News report identified none of the museums from which airplane parts were taken, and one stating that the report featured no other details beyond those mentioned in the fact check.

This editor's note was added at the end of the fact check:

Editor's note: This item was updated on June 9, 2017 to say that the Fox News report did identify one museum. That information does not change the rating.

As with the other correction we helped prompt this week, we are impressed by PolitiFact Wisconsin's ability to commit an error and then fix the error without admitting any mistake. The editor's note says the fact check was changed "to say the Fox News report did identify one museum." Why was that change made? The editor's note doesn't say. The truth is the change was made because PolitiFact Wisconsin made a mistake.

It's appropriate for journalists to admit to making mistakes when they make them.  We do not care for the spin we see in PolitiFact Wisconsin's update notices.

Are we being too tough on PolitiFact Wisconsin? We think noted journalist Craig Silverman would agree with us.

Rather than destroying trust, corrections are a powerful tool to reinforce how accountable and transparent we are.

“If you’re willing to admit you’re wrong, people will trust you more,” said Mathew Ingram of Gigaom. “If I said to someone ‘You know, I’m never wrong’ they would think I was a psychopath or a liar, so they would trust me less. That’s versus if I said ‘I screw up all the time.’ They trust you more because you’re more human.”

That’s the paradox of trust: admitting our mistakes and failings make us more deserving of trust.

Correction June 14, 2017: Commenter Vinni BoD noticed our update was dated Sept. 2017. The month was actually June, which was the correct month in two spots where we (inexplicably) had "Sept." instead.

Great Moments in the Annals of Subjectivity (Updated)

Did Republican Donald Trump win the electoral college in a landslide?

We typically think of a "landslide" as an overwhelming victory, and there's certainly doubt whether Trump's margin of victory in the electoral college unequivocally counts as overwhelming.

"Overwhelming" itself is hard to pin down in objective terms.

So that's why we have PolitiFact, the group of liberal bloggers that puts "fact" in its name and then proceeds to publish "fact check journalism" based on subjective "Truth-O-Meter" judgments.

When RNC Chairman Reince Priebus (and Trump's pick for his chief of staff) called Trump's electoral college victory a "landslide," PolitiFact Wisconsin's liberal bloggers sprang into action to do their thing (bold emphasis added):

Landslide, of course, is not technically defined. When we asked for information to back Priebus’ claim, the Republican National Committee merely recited the electoral figures and repeated that it was a landslide.

If "landslide" is not technically defined then what fact is PolitiFact Wisconsin checking? Is "landslide" non-technically defined to the point one can judge it true or false?

PolitiFact Wisconsin follows typical PolitiFact procedure in collecting expert opinions about whether Priebus' use of "landslide" matches its non-technical definition. One of the 10 experts PolitiFact consulted said Trump's margin was "close" to a landslide. PolitiFact said the other nine said it fell short, so PolitiFact ruled Priebus' claim "False."

Priebus said Trump’s win was "an electoral landslide."

But aside from the fact Trump lost the popular vote, his margin in the Electoral College isn’t all that high, either. None of the 10 experts we contacted said Trump’s win crosses that threshold.

We rate Priebus’ claim False.

One has to marvel at expertise sufficient to say whether the use of a term meets a non-technical definition.

One has to marvel all the more at fact checkers who concede that a term has a mushy definition ("not technically defined") and then declare that some use of the term fails to cross "that threshold."

What threshold?

One of the election experts said if Trump won by a landslide then Obama won by an even greater landslide.

RollCall, 2015:

In 2006, Democrats won back the House; two years later, President Barack Obama won by a landslide.

LA Times, 2012:

Obama officially wins in electoral vote landslide.

NPR, 2015:

President Obama won in a landslide.

NYU Journalism, 2008:

Obama Wins Landslide Victory, Charts New Course for United States.

Since Obama did not win by a landslide, therefore one cannot claim Trump won by a landslide? Is that it?

It is folly for fact checkers to try to judge the truth of ambiguous claims. PolitiFact often pursues that folly, of course, and in the end simply underscores what it occasionally admits: The ratings are subjective.

Finding experts willing to participate in the folly does not reduce the magnitude of the folly. This would have been a good subject for PolitiFact to use in continuing its Voxification trend. PolitiFact might have produced an "In context" article to talk about electoral landslides and how experts view the matter. But trying to corral the use of a term that is traditionally hard to tame simply makes a mockery of fact-checking.

Jeff Adds (Dec. 1, 2016):

Add this to a long list of opinions that PolitiFact treats as verifiable facts, including these two gems:

- Radio host John DePetro opined that the Boston Marathon bomber was buried "not far" from President John Kennedy. PolitiFact used their magical powers of objective divinity to determine the unarguable demarcation of "not far."

- Rush Limbaugh claimed "some of the wealthiest American's are African-Americans now." Using the divine wizardry of the nonpartisan Truth-O-Meter, PolitiFact's highly trained social scientists were able to conjure up a determinant definition of what "wealthiest" means, and specifically which people were included in the list.

Reasonable people may discount Trump's claim of a "landslide" victory assuming the conventional use of the term, but it's not a verifiable fact that can be confirmed or dismissed with evidence. It's an opinion.

The reality is that the charlatans at PolitiFact masquerade as truthsayers when they do little more than contribute to the supposed fake news epidemic by shilling their own opinions as unarguable fact. They're dangerous frauds whose declaration of objectivity doesn't withstand the slightest scrutiny.

WUWT: "Note to Politifact: Obama DID say there is No Greater Threat than Climate Change"

The climate skeptic site "Watts Up With That" posted an item critical of PolitiFact on June 6, 2016. Contributor Eric Worrall begged to differ with the "Mostly False" rating PolitiFact Arizona gave to Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu. Babeu said President Obama has said climate change is the No. 1 security threat facing the United States.

Worrell responded with his post "Note to PolitiFact: Obama DID say there is No Greater Threat than Climate Change."

We think Worrell ends up striking a glancing blow by not addressing Babeu's use of the term "security," but even the glancing blow does a good bit of damage (bold emphasis added):

President Obama may have made other statements which contradict some of his statements on Climate Change – he is after all a politician. But Politifact’s assertion that it is a “mostly false” exaggeration, to say that President Obama thinks Climate Change is the greatest threat to national security, is clearly unreasonable – unless you think that suggesting Climate is the “greatest threat” to future generations, suggesting climate, unlike terrorism, might be an “existential threat” to the entire world, suggesting “we need to act now”, could not reasonably be interpreted as being a suggestion that climate is the nation’s number one priority.

The point in bold could have used more emphasis in Waddell's critique. PolitiFact literally used Obama's claim of prioritizing the fight against terrorists to pooh-pooh Babeu's claim (bold emphasis added):

Obama continues to cite climate change as a great threat to the world, but framing the issue as the country’s top national security threat is an exaggeration. Obama has said fighting terrorism is his most urgent priority.

The Arizona sheriff ignores important context, so we rate his claim as Mostly False.

The truth is that if Obama has said climate change is the top national security priority, he cannot undo the statement by claiming a different top priority.

PolitiFact Arizona's fact check shows its bias by failing to provide the most obvious counterbalance to its key evidence against Babeu.

PolitiFact:

Contrary to Babeu’s claim, the president’s top national security threat appears to be terrorism.

Out of context

In March, after the terrorist attacks in Brussels, Obama said, "I’ve got a lot of things of my plate, but my top priority is to defeat ISIL."

The president's remarks in the Atlantic downplaying the threat of ISIS compared to the threat of climate change failed to find their way into PolitiFact's fact check (we note that Worrell used the quotation to good effect):

“ISIS is not an existential threat to the United States,” he told me in one of these conversations. “Climate change is a potential existential threat to the entire world if we don’t do something about it.”

Though it is common sense to suppose that a president will respond to the greatest existential threat by making it the highest priority, it does not follow as a matter of logic that the greatest threat is always the highest priority. In his the Atlantic interview, Obama went on at length about the political difficulty of addressing climate change.

Maybe that is a big part of the reason he does not call it his top priority?

Once again, PolitiFact substitutes opinion journalism for fact-checking. Babeu did not claim he was giving Obama's exact words. So PolitiFact Arizona arrogates to itself the privilege of cooking up, on the spot, a set of standards that result in the "Mostly False" rating.

There is no solid epistemological backing for the rating. In PolitiFact Arizona's opinion, what Babeu said was "Mostly False."

The truth is that President Obama has said climate change is an immediate and growing threat to U.S. national security. And his administration acts as though border security counts very low in terms of national security.

And wasn't that last point really Babeu's point?

The difference between a true underlying point that matters and a true underlying point that doesn't matter, we suppose, is that sometimes it matters and sometimes it doesn't.

PolitiFact recycles garbage: "False" that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme

Are the fact checkers at PolitiFact inept? Intentionally deceitful? Both?

Jeff and I chat about that issue from time to time. We try to give people the benefit of the doubt, but PolitiFact makes this one a tough call.

The latest challenge to our attempt to see the best in the people at PolitiFact? They're misleading their readers with their recycled garbage about Social Security's financing structure. On Facebook, PolitiFact reminded readers they should remember and believe PolitiFact's flawed fact checks from the past:

What are the "several reasons" PolitiFact uses to deny the similarity?

PolitiFact uses Mitchell Zuckoff, a journalist who wrote about Charles' Ponzi's original ripoff, as its go-to expert. Let's examine the features supposedly distinguishing Social Security from a Ponzi scheme.

"First, in the case of Social Security, no one is being misled," Zuckoff wrote in a January 2009 article in Fortune. "Social Security is exactly what it claims to be: A mandatory transfer payment system under which current workers are taxed on their incomes to pay benefits, with no promises of huge returns."

People are being misled into believing that Social Security's financing is solid, so we challenge Zuckoff's claim that no one is being misled. But, more to the point, Ponzi himself would have had no need to mislead his victims if he shared the government's power to force participation. As Zuckoff notes, Social Security is a mandatory transfer payment system. This can't count as a critical distinguishing difference, for Ponzi would have leaped at the chance to force participation in his scheme.

Second, he wrote, "A Ponzi scheme is unsustainable because the number of potential investors is eventually exhausted." While Social Security faces a huge burden due to retiring Baby Boomers, it can be and has been tweaked, and "the government could change benefit formulas or take other steps, like increasing taxes, to keep the system from failing.

Here, Zuckoff is flatly wrong. A Ponzi scheme can have the same number of potential investors as Social Security. The trick is getting potential investors to turn into actual investors. Zuckoff's second difference maker is the same as the first, on examination: Ponzi had to lure new investors with false claims. He would have preferred the convenience of Social Security's mandatory participation.

Third, Zuckoff wrote, "Social Security is morally the polar opposite of a Ponzi scheme. ... At the height of the Great Depression, our society (see 'Social') resolved to create a safety net (see 'Security') in the form of a social insurance policy that would pay modest benefits to retirees, the disabled and the survivors of deceased workers. By design, that means a certain amount of wealth transfer, with richer workers subsidizing poorer ones. That might rankle, but it's not fraud."

The third difference, Zuckoff says, is that Social Security is good while Ponzi schemes are bad. We see two foundations for Zuckoff's claim. The first is ideological. Zuckoff takes it as axiomatic that the morality behind Social Security is superior to the morality behind Ponzi schemes. We think it's hard to base an objective finding of fact on the presumption of moral superiority. The second foundation of Zuckoff's argument comes again from his first point: Social Security, unlike a Ponzi scheme, is not fraud. As we pointed out above, Charles Ponzi would have loved to make mandatory participation a feature of his scheme.

That's it. Those three (a bit short of two after winnowing) reasons supposedly make it "False" that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme.

PolitiFact includes comments from CATO Institute's Michael Tanner. Tanner affirms a similarity between Social Security and a Ponzi scheme, while noting some differences. PolitiFact makes those comments a footnote, so the similarities are de-emphasized in the story and ignored in the final ruling.

Ultimately, the thing that keeps Social Security from being a Ponzi scheme in PolitiFact's eyes is a feature that Ponzi would have loved to include: the power to keep new money coming in through mandatory participation. If Ponzi had that power and were alive today, he could still be making money off of new investors.

PolitiFact shows its bias by ignoring the similarities Tanner points out and by making the power to force participation the line of demarcation between Social Security and Ponzi schemes.

There's also the issue of ignored evidence. Professional peer-reviewed journals routinely refer to Social Security's "pay-as-you-go" financing as a Ponzi game or Ponzi scheme. We offer one example among many:

In an unguarded moment 30 years ago, Nobel Laureate Paul Samuelson captured the reasoning undergirding this approach to public finance:

The beauty about social insurance is that it is actuarially un-sound. Everyone who reaches retirement age is given benefit privileges that far exceed anything he has paid in.... Social Security is squarely based on what has been called the eighth wonder of the world--compound interest. A growing nation is the greatest Ponzi game ever contrived. And that is a fact, not a paradox.

With below-replacement fertility and increasing longevity, however, the arithmetic of pay-as-you-go retirement programs changes unforgivingly. As the ratio of employees to retirees falls, a universal pay-as-you-go retirement system has only three options for preventing bankruptcy: reduce pension benefits; raise taxes; restrict eligibility. There are no alternatives.

Should you trust the fact checker that overlooks and denies by omission this part of the story? How does a competent fact checker fail to find Social Security's pay-as-you-go financing described abundantly in professional literature as a Ponzi game?

We don't know the answer to that question. Maybe PolitiFact knows.


Afters:

The similarities CATO's Michael Tanner pointed out between Social Security and a Ponzi scheme amounted to a "False" rating. But PolitiFact found it "Half True" that President Barack Obama's signature health care reform, the so-called Affordable Care Act, was the Republican health care proposal from 1993.

The Republican bill must have been much more similar to Obamacare than Social Security is to a Ponzi scheme, right? Judge for yourself.

Our take? PolitiFact is magnificently inconsistent. And the inconsistency tends to favor the political left, as in this case.

PolitiFact: Lightning strikes still make a better comparison than alligator attacks

If you're tempted to illustrate the rarity of something by comparing it to something from real life, PolitiFact has a message for you: Take lightning strikes over alligator attacks.

On the issue of voter fraud, PolitiFact has given a number of "True" ratings to persons saying lightning strikes outnumber cases (that's cases considered for prosecution, mind you, not "cases" in the sense of "instances") of in-person voter impersonation.

PolitiFact's comparison is rigged by its narrow count of "cases," of course, but that's another story.

PolitiFact Wisconsin recycled the fact check with an April 7, 2016 item. The item offers no hint of criticism of the comparison of voter fraud to lightning strikes.

PolitiFact Wisconsin's "True" rating perpetuates the inconsistency we noted from a PolitiFact Florida fact check from 2015. It was claimed alligator attacks are more likely than a criminal attack by a Floridian with a concealed-carry gun permit. PolitiFact found the evidence broadly supported the claim but ruled it "Mostly False" since comparing alligator attacks to attacks with a firearm doesn't make sense:

(T)hese statistics, imperfect as they are, do support the notion that both kinds of attacks are uncommon. Whether this is a valid argument in favor of the bill is in the eye of the beholder. We find the statement has an element of truth but ignores other information that would give a different impression. So we rate it Mostly False.

There's an item a Zebra Fact Check criticizing PolitiFact Florida's ruling in detail.

It's worth noting that PolitiFact Wisconsin's evidence on voter fraud shared essentially the same weakness (no dependable count creating doubt):

It’s fair to say, however, that impersonation cases can be hard to count in that they are hard to prove -- particularly when no photo ID requirement is in place and a voter can cast a ballot simply by stating the name of a registered voter.

So the number of cases of in-person fraud by impersonation may be higher than that cited by Levitt, but no independent source suggests it is higher than the number of lightning strikes.

(...)

We rate Pocan’s statement True.

In both cases, then, PolitiFact doesn't really have the facts to fit the claim. But the liberal gets a "True" and the conservative gets a "Mostly False."

In other words, PolitiFact is objective and nonpartisan. Or something.

And if something happens rarely, compare it to lighting strikes instead of alligator attacks. Your PolitiFact report card may suffer otherwise.

Fact checker avoids checking facts

A summary article by PolitiFact Wisconsin's Tom Kertscher contributes new evidence supporting our claims that PolitiFact checks facts poorly and applies its standards inconsistently. We'll address the latter point in a later post.

Kertscher's article reviewed statements made in Wisconsin by Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton. The following example from Kertscher's story grabbed our attention:

"The Republican governor of Florida has forbidden any state employee ever to use, either orally or in writing, the words ‘climate change.’ "

A news report in March 2015 made that assertion, though the governor, Rick Scott, denied it.

The story Kertscher linked in support, however, dealt only with Florida's Department of Environmental Protection. The State of Florida has quite a few employees outside of the DEP. On the face of it, Clinton exaggerated wildly and the best PolitiFact Wisconsin can do in response is prop up a he-said/she-said facade supporting Clinton.

PolitiFact Wisconsin reported falsely. The March 2015 news report made no assertion that Gov. Scott placed a "climate change" gag order on every state employee in Florida.

We sent a message to Tom Kertscher on March 30, 2016 pointing out the error.

We'll update this item if we receive any response.

PolitiFact Wisconsin: The privileged, prominent and wealthy are superheroes

PolitiFact Wisconsin gives us a July 2015 item that helpfully reminds us of PolitiFact's singular ability to take the statements of political figures--especially conservatives--out of context.

The item was not a fact check, but rather an article about a statement by Governor Scott Walker, running as a Republican presidential candidate. Walker said he had viewed the founding fathers like superheroes when he was a boy. Walker said he came to the realization they were simply ordinary people who did something extraordinary.

Cue PolitiFact Wisconsin, which found Walker's story fishy (bold emphasis added):

Walker has many times called the founding fathers ordinary people. And while campaigning, he has emphasized that he himself doesn’t come from wealth or prominence, even bragging that he bought a sweater for a dollar.

But his recent retelling of the story seemed contradictory, given that he referred to the founding fathers not only as ordinary, but as businessmen with political careers.

So businessmen with political careers are not ordinary. They are the superheroes perceived by the boy Walker.

"But wait," one might object. "Perhaps Walker was saying the founding fathers were ordinary in the sense that they were not privileged or wealthy."

Of course we thought of that. We looked for that idea in the context of Walker's remarks. Instead, we found more references to "superheroes."

PolitiFact Wisconsin supplied a substitute context, the idea that Walker discovered the founding fathers were not the elites of their day, and ignored the context Walker supplied, realizing the founding fathers were not "larger than life" superhero types.

Taken to its conclusion, PolitiFact Wisconsin's reasoning suggests businessmen with political careers are larger than life. They're superheroes.

In the end, it's just another in a long line of left-leaning editorials served up by PolitiFact under the "nonpartisan" label. PolitiFact Wisconsin twisted Walker's words and meaning.

PolitiFact Wisconsin: It's false until somebody fact-checks it

We've long registered our objections to PolitiFact's fallacious "burden of proof" criterion for political claims.

PolitiFact Wisconsin gives us a fantastic example of that flawed method with its fact check of Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson. Carson highlighted problems with advancement in the black community by saying there are more blacks involved with the criminal justice system than with higher education.

PolitiFact Wisconsin decided to evaluate claim and rated it "False." But of course there's a problem with the rating. PolitiFact Wisconsin found it had poor data with which to work:

(T)here is only one solid figure -- 75,000 black males ages 18 to 24 in prison. We’re not aware of any recent counts of the black males in that age group who were arrested, in jail, or on probation or parole at a particular time.

PolitiFact Wisconsin emphasized that relatively low solid figure in its summary paragraph:

Carson did not provide evidence that backs his claim. The latest federal figures we found show 75,000 black males in that age group who were in prison in 2013 and in the range of 690,000 to 779,000 who were in college. We are not aware of any recent figures for the number of black males ages 18 to 24 arrested, in jail, or on probation or parole at any particular time.

If figures do surface, we’ll re-evaluate this item, but we rate Carson’s claim False.

Perhaps it makes sense if the number of blacks ages 18 to 24 in college outnumber those involved with the criminal justice system 779,000 to 75,000. But that number comparison is rigged against Carson. PolitiFact Wisconsin acknowledges Carson's claim on unknown numbers of young blacks arrested, in jail, on probation or on parole.

And that's the Achilles' heel of PolitiFact Wisconsin's fact check. It collected enough information to enable rough estimates of those categories.

Was Carson's claim plausible?

We start our estimate by noting the percentage of blacks ages 18 to 24 in the federal prison population was fairly high: PolitiFact said the number of about 14 percent of the total black population.

We aim to create a conservative estimate, erring on the side of caution, so we'll assume that just 10 percent of blacks in the other categories fall in the 18 to 24 age range.

Arrests

PolitiFact Wisconsin noted that one individual might be arrested more than once. Still, the fact checkers gave the number 3 million for arrests of adult blacks in 2012. Ten percent of 3 million gives us a figure of 300,000, but to help account for multiple arrests we'll cut that number in half and use 150,000.

In Jail

PolitiFact Wisconsin gave a figure of 261,500 for jail inmates in mid-2013. Ten percent of that figure gives us about 26,000.

On Probation or Parole

PolitiFact Wisconsin said 4.75 million people of all races were on probation, parole or other supervision in 2013. The Bureau of Justice Statistics, PolitiFact's source, says blacks account for 30 percent of that number. That gives us 1.4 million, and 10 percent of 1.4 million comes to 140,000.

Totals

Combined with the 75,000 prison population PolitiFact Wisconsin used, our conservative estimate comes to 391,000--about half of PolitiFact Wisconsin's peak figure for black college enrollment. Based on our estimate, we think it's very unlikely Carson's claim exaggerates the truth by more than 100 percent, probably exaggerates it by substantially less than 100 percent and perhaps doesn't exaggerate at all.

For comparison, PolitiFact Georgia recently gave a "Mostly False" rating to a claim exaggerated by over 200 percent.

Do these numbers potentially support Carson's underlying point about the upward mobility of young black males? For some reason, PolitiFact Wisconsin did not deem that point worth considering.

Shall fact checkers rate claims "False" if they are difficult to settle? We think that's the wrong method. We also think fact checkers err by selectively ignoring politicians' underlying arguments. Either consider the underlying argument every time or never consider the underlying argument. Fairness demands it.