A statement that is true is picked as Lie of the Year over one that the speaker referred to as “not intended to be a factual statement.”

I’m not sure how these people make it to work in the morning without injuring themselves.

And perhaps wisely from their perspective, there is no way to comment on Politifact’s Lie of the Year.

This is a real shame. I was depending on them to provide me with some real fact-checking.

Are there any other fact-checking sites or organizations that you would recommend?

Politifact has been suspect for some time, really. I recently got into a debate with this right winger about Politifact, when they called something that Nancy Pelosi said a big lie. I researched the facts myself and found that she was, at most, stretching the truth. But the guy kept pointing to Politifact as the ultimate trump card, the ultimate authority. I told him that was crap, and so he un-freinded me. Not a big deal, but I haven’t trusted them for some time. They are exactly the kind of simplistic thing that authoritarian idiots love.

The car one is apt.  Or how about I say that I’m buying you gas, but then I give you a bus-pass… Oh, and next month I’ll give you 90% of a bus-pass.

Or their claim that because Medicare doesn’t end for those already enrolled, it hasn’t ended.  Politifact said that one, too.  A bus line that isn’t taking on passengers has ended its service, hasn’t it?

@Comment #3: luxaeturna on 12/20 at 12:48 PM

Are there any other fact-checking sites or organizations that you would recommend?

I’ve come to believe that the very best one is you.

Comment #3: luxaeturna on 12/20 at 01:48 PM

Mediamatters does a good job, with their limited scale.

“Hey! You sold me this Mars Bar and it turns out to be a turd!”
“Oh no, sir, it’s definitely a Mars Bar! Just read the wrapper: M-A-R-S B-A-R, see.”
“Oops, my mistake! I was confused by the small, the low cocoa solids content and the fact that it is indeed a turd, but if you call it a Mars Bar, that’s what it is. Good day!”
*customer saunters off blithely, chewing*

Argh! Smell, not small. Stupid fingers.

Maybe politifact decided to go meta and provide the biggest lie themselves by lying about what is the biggest lie. That would be a bold artistic statment. The lie is a lie.

their explanation for choosing this as the lie of the year is so pathetic. basically boils down to: “this lie stuck, so it’s a bigger lie.” Well maybe it stuck because it’s basically true. sure democrats framed it to make republicans look as bad as possible. but that’s what every politician does.

“Or their claim that because Medicare doesn’t end for those already enrolled, it hasn’t ended.”

This is the equivalent of thinking that if we never leave Iraq then we haven’t lost the war, instead of admitting that the war was already lost when Commander Codpiece was ferried out to the USS Abraham Lincoln, cruising just off the coast of San Diego, for his big “Mission Accomplished!” moment…

***

I want to know where the AARP is on this.  Are they okay with grandpa and grandma selling out their own kids & grandkids as long as their checks still come in every month?  Or has the Reichwing election machine devolved democracy in America to the point when seniors screaming at politicians is no longer an effective threat?...

Seniors are a much less potent threat now, because if seniors don’t have State photo ID, or certified copies of every legal document generated during their lifetime so they can obtain State photo ID, the seniors won’t be voting.

Damn that photo ID pisses me off so much.

The polling place has a list of names and addresses.  They have all year - and often more - to check this list.

Why does someone need to carry around a little card with their name and address that might be lost, stolen, or cost money when that stupid list the polling place has already has all the information?  If they wanted pictures, they could just print pictures into their polling book.  Heck, they could add biometrics, too!

Damn it’s stupid.

Media Matters is good in no small part because they don’t try to be non-partisan. They are, technically speaking, but their focus is on right wing media, so they don’t have any political considerations pulling them to establish a false equivalence.

@14—Photo ID rules are straight-up oppression.  Not always: a suicide bomber could sneak only a plane and take it down, I guess, so maybe it’s worth hassling us all (even though the 9/11 guys used real ID: terrorist bosses could probably find fresh meat not on a watch list).  But voting?  What harm could a fraudulent voter do? 

Check out the Alas blog for how teenagers seeking to terminate a pregnancy get tortured on this pike.  Hey kid, if you wanted an abortion, you should have gotten a driver’s license.  Or kept a copy of your birth certificate.

Is it not possible to hang a small amendment on this Bill should it pass renaming it “RepublicanCare”?

No, Unree, the sexual assaults happening simply because TSA agents are bored are not acceptable preventative measures for the oft chance of preventing a suicide bomber.  They are a straight up violation of the 4th amendment and a sign that we are not the land of the free anymore, unless you can pay for the privilege.

Removing our shoes is harassment.  And stupid.  And has failed to protect anyone.

Osama won.  Make no mistake about that.

This speaks to what I think is a major factor behind the movement of most ‘moderates’ to the Democratic camp:

Nihilism.

They start to notice that GOP ‘policies’ are composed entirely of dime store sophistry.

I think some Dem issues are losers - I think gun control does nothing but arm criminals and disarm law abiders for example.

But to go GOP is to essentially leave my deepest sense of morality behind: The notion that there are indeed objective facts and not just relativistic universe of powerful rhetoric backed by soul-less sophists and straight up thugs.

The shamelessly Orwellian nature of the current Rethug party is really the basis for most opposition to it. People who can think for themselves or simply analyze logic are being repelled by this GOP embrace of nihilism.

Politifact is a Fair and Balanced website. “They report, you decide”, etc.

KingElvis, please explain the correlation between gun control and less people shot to death.

KingElvis, please explain the correlation between gun control and less people shot to death.

What correlation?  Gun control has less effect on year-to-year violence than socioeconomic issues.

On topic though, Politifact just wants to get their massive donations from rich corporations.  This just reinforces their desire to befriend those with the most money and seem non-partisan in the process.

I looked at one of the “pants of fire” selections which supposed supports their choice for the year.  It focused on the Dem ad saying Ryan’s plan ended Medicare and called for seniors to spend $12,000 more for care.  Their quibbles? 
1) The changes wouldn’t have taken place until 2022, so current seniors wouldn’t be affected,
2) the projected cost without change would be about $6,000, so the estimated private insurance premium of $12,000 is only an increase by $6,000,
3) it would still be called Medicare even though direct payments to health care providers would end, and
4) everyone knew it wouldn’t pass, therefore voting for it was not really a vote to end Medicare. 

So saying a vote for an end to Medicare as we know it (direct payment to providers) is a lie because 1) the end is sometime in the future, 2) your estimated cost is an exaggeration, 3) attaching the same name to something completely different is not ending the old program, and 4) voting for the end doesn’t count if you know it can’t happen.  Wow.

@Xeranar:
“Gun control has less effect on year-to-year violence than socioeconomic issues.”

“year-to-year violence” != “people shot to death”

compare most of the rest of the world with sensible gun control to our violent homicide. and control for socioeconomic status all you like.

David Weigel at Slate.com reported that Ryan’s PAC emailed its followers to vote that “ending Medicare” was the biggest lie.  Politifact didn’t pick it themselves; it was the equivalent of fans of a Dancing with the Stars contestant keeping their no-talent favorite on the show.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2011/12/20/paul_ryan_conquers_politifact.html

I believe it was Allan Grayson who (accurately) said that the old Republican Healthcare Plan is “Don’t get sick.  And if you do get sick, die quickly before it costs society anything.”

(But at least it’s not like those Evil Liberal Death Panels the Reichwing was all upset about for a couple of years…)

New Republican Healthcare Plan: 

We’ll make you pay big premiums for shittier benefits.  (With the old Medicare dead, what else are you going to do?)  The deductible will really high too, so none of you can afford to get sick unless you’re near death.  After all, we own stock in health insurance corps, so we need to keep them very profitable. 

If you feel the need, go ahead and get sick ‘cause we own stock in health provider corps too.  But don’t be surprised if your health insurer denies payment on anything/everything.  They’re not made of money, you know, and we have to keep the stock price nice and high.

If you just have to be admitted into a hospital (probably because some liberal, bleeding-heart doctor suggested it against healthcare insurance treatment guidelines), have the good graces to die quickly before your bills get larger than you (or your heirs) can afford.  And don’t be surprised if the health providers we own stock in dump your sick ass into the street when the money dries up.  Treatment is expensive, but dying is cheap (for us anyway)...

You know, it’s not like there’s nothing to report on against Democrats.  We’ve got SOPA and NDAA and the whole “Fast and Furious” DoJ mess-up and the contractors we’re leaving behind in Iraq (17,000 people in an embassy is not quite a full military pull-out) and the whole Bradley Manning / Wikileaks freak out and Pelosi’s gaff on TDS talking about Congressional insider trading - all ripe territory for calling out Democrats on whoopers they’ve told.

If Politifact was serious about playing the “Both sides do it” card, they have opportunities.  For some reason Politifact zeroed in on a bunch of trivial bullshit and Paul Ryan’s Medicare dissolution plan.  Where were they on Obama’s DEA going after marijuana clinics in California or closing down Gitmo?  Surely, these are issues worth highlighting.  Where were they when Democrats voted for SOPA while claiming it wouldn’t infringe on web free speech?

Its not just what Politifact did go after, it’s all the little nuggets they left on the floor.  Medicare is a fight between Democrats and Republicans after all.  But all these other issues had bipartisan consensus.  So I guess they weren’t interesting enough to call bullshit on.

@#24:
“David Weigel at Slate.com reported that Ryan’s PAC emailed its followers to vote that “ending Medicare” was the biggest lie.  Politifact didn’t pick it themselves; it was the equivalent of fans of a Dancing with the Stars contestant keeping their no-talent favorite on the show.”

nah. the medicare “lie” got third in the poll. The editors picked this as their number one. they even explain their reasoning on their website. and it’s complete BS.

KingElvis, please explain the correlation between gun control and less people shot to death.

<blockquote>What correlation?  Gun control has less effect on year-to-year violence than socioeconomic issues.

</blockquote>
That’s funny, I thought I had written “less people shot to death”, not “year to year violence”. Do you disagree that I wrote that?

compare most of the rest of the world with sensible gun control to our violent homicide. and control for socioeconomic status all you like.

If you do it still comes out that gun control has little direct affect on the system unless you create a near-gun-less society.  It isn’t going to happen in the US.

Strangely, less automatic weapons has meant less deaths from automatic weapon fire.

Are you saying that without these gun controls, we’d have the same number of deaths?

Locally, gun control can have a big effect.  Of course, the Republican Supreme court recently said that localities can’t rule on what guns you have in your home, bringing to doubt many urban gun laws.

The problem with Politifact is that they are allegedly doing a job that newspapers are suppose to be doing in the first place and turning it into something fancy.  Politifact comes from the St. Petersburg Times, Florida’s largest paper in my home town.  The paper used to be respectable, but has been doing a lot of dumb things lately from endorsing our Republican mayors to beating the drum for an expensive new baseball stadium to raising its prices to changing its name to something stupid.  The paper has taken a right turn and Politifact is a symptom of that.

The whole concept of the meter showing how true something is is a joke.  How do judge “false” vs “pants on fire?”  Remember when Sarah Palin said that Paul Revere was warning the British?  That got “mostly false” while the true statement about Republicans ending Medicare got a “pants on fire.”  Pure bullshit.  They should just call themselves the “Ministry of Truth” instead.

Albert @31: actually, I think the biggest problem now is that the conservatives are probably going to adopt the “non-partisan fact checking” format to repeat their talking points.  From what you’re describing about the St. Petersburg Times control over Politifact, I’m now expecting this to get worse.

Comment #29: Xeranar on 12/20 at 07:21 PM

If you do it still comes out that gun control has little direct affect on the system unless you create a near-gun-less society.  It isn’t going to happen in the US.

I can never understand this argument.  “Oh, eliminating widespread gun ownership would have a great effect.  But let’s not do it, despite all of the proven problems caused by widespread gun ownership, because everybody has guns already.”

Sure, I can understand the fact that there’s insurmountable political opposition right now (largely from a minority of the population who control the federal government).  I can also understand that these measures would not work right away (it would take a good while to make a dent on the rate of gun ownership in the USA).  But I still just don’t understand how the latter is an argument against doing it.

Comment #30: Crissa on 12/20 at 07:34 PM

Locally, gun control can have a big effect.

Not really, because it’s just too easy to go to the next state and buy guns.  (And not just for yourself—buy a bunch and sell them back home!)

There’s a few simple measures that would put a big dent on this, if adopted consistently throughout the USA: mandatory waiting periods for firearm purchases, limits on how many firearms a person could purchase during a time period, licensing requirements for firearm ownership (with renewal requirements), nationwide firearm registration and purchase tracking databases, etc.  A couple other ideas are to severely restrict handgun ownership and carry laws, and also, restrict the capacity of detachable ammo clips for semi-automatic weapons (California does both).

All of these, of course, are opposed vehemently by the NRA.

It just goes to show that being neutral is really difficult, so many people pretend to be balanced because it’s far easier, instead.

No, not ‘not really’ you dumbfuck.  Local gun control laws means the ass who shows up with a gun can be arrested before they do something with it.

Just because you can break the law doesn’t make that law useless.  What, do you think speed limits and building codes don’t do anything?  on control laws are no different.  They allow localities to police when and where firearms are stored and regulated, and how they deal with breaches of those laws.

Firearms should be regulated.  But the NRA and second-amendment dumbfucks make reasonable regulation near impossible, and we end up with a patchwork of laws that don’t track, trace, backtrack, or guarantee safe use of weapons.  It’s more illegal to transport a sword in the city than it is a gun, and that’s just stupid.

I’m rather freaked out that Illinois is he only state left where concealed carry is illegal, much less open carry.

What the fuck is wrong with the rest of you?  Any tea partier who showed up at a rally here with a gun would be arrested.  Because that’s fucking scary, and there’s no need for it.

I can never understand this argument.  “Oh, eliminating widespread gun ownership would have a great effect.  But let’s not do it, despite all of the proven problems caused by widespread gun ownership, because everybody has guns already.”

If I take away your butter knife you can’t accidentally cut yourself can you?  I’m saying your argument is flawed in that you want no guns at all which is an extreme and unrealistic view within the majority of the US.  Society is reactionary to violence, we can’t do future crime as you so wish.  It is an enshrined right to own a firearm and I see no reason to unravel that. 

Also for the record: 99% of the municipalities I’ve been to have almost no rules regarding swords or other medieval weaponry.  So to somehow argue that it’s harder to move a sword than a gun is ludicrous.  I don’t concur with the NRA on much but a huge database of guns makes no sense.  Violence is a reactionary issue that can’t be dealt with by showing future crime force on it.

@Xeranar: no.  Almost every state and municipality in the union has rules regarding the length of pointy objects you can just carry around.

Sorry for derailing, but I find hilarious the image of common muggers using medieval weaponry to assault convenience stores. Is this a serious argument?

The American discourse around guns seems to be:

A bunch of NRA people on one side arguing for the right to have any armaments they wish.

A bunch of liberals on the other side trying to eradicate all firearms of any type.

And the odd person in the middle looking at both ends thinking they’re crazy.

Is that about it?

I don’t know, Baruk, are the crimes you are imagining serious? It is not nearly as rare as you seem to think. There was one just the other day when a dude robbed a liquor store with one.

In the US, it doesn’t seem to be identified as a problem like it is in other places (it is incredibly easy to find hand-wringing over sword violence in the UK), but that is probuably due in large part to all of our guns. Slate had a piece about a year ago that addressed swords used in violent attacks. They say it isn’t common muggers, though; swords are the weapons of schizophrenic nerds. (The article goes a bit Freudian too. You have been warned.)

Jayn @ 40 - Yes, as I see it.  for what it’s worth, I’m one of those people in the middle thinking both are fucking nuts and wholy navel gazing.  I want my in-laws to be able to shoot a ferral dog, badger or weasel tearing into their hen house or attacking there other livestock; I don’t see anything wrong with registering hand guns, semi-autos and the like nor requiring a class.  (Re the last: so long as the government offers the class, I also have issue with sttes that require a driving class to get an early license but don’t offer clases through public schools).

“They say it isn’t common muggers, though; swords are the weapons of schizophrenic nerds.”

You shouldn’t talk about wingnuts that way.  They might take offense and pick through their fantasy weapon collection on your behalf…

Last year, a sleazeball in Lowell shot his ex-girlfreind’s cat with a crossbow.

Jayn: No, not really. The bunch of liberals are trying to say things like “If you have a record of untreated mental illness, you can’t buy a gun without further scrutiny” or “If you tell a seller at a gun show that you woudn’t pass a criminal background check, they shouldn’t sell guns to you” or “Gun clubs should not hold events where 8-year-olds fire semi-automatic weapons with live ammo” and the NRA is responding “GAAAAAH THEY WANT TO STEAL ALL OUR GUNS!!!!”

Those of us who cherish some rights “guaranteed” under the Bill of Rights need to accept others we’re not so keen about.  Gun ownership is maybe the top of that list. 

Sacundim’s suggestions at comment #33 make sense to me and would not violate 2nd Amendment rights, imo.  I don’t favor registration, though, since I’m not a fan of yet another way for the government to monitor and control citizens.

mandatory waiting periods for firearm purchases, limits on how many firearms a person could purchase during a time period, licensing requirements for firearm ownership (with renewal requirements), nationwide firearm registration and purchase tracking databases, etc.  A couple other ideas are to severely restrict handgun ownership and carry laws, and also, restrict the capacity of detachable ammo clips for semi-automatic weapons (California does both).

I don’t own a gun.

but I find hilarious the image of common muggers using medieval weaponry to assault convenience stores. Is this a serious argument?

Our Micky D’s are threatened.

Samurai swords aren’t really a good offensive weapon of choice when you’re trying to steal something big.

Mesa thief Anthony Lopez Rios used a samurai sword in an attempt to steal a guy’s bicycle last night. More laughable than using a martial arts weapon to try to rob a bike, the robbery attempt netted precisely zero bikes—and Rios can now add “failed bike robber” to his lengthy resume of criminal activity.

According to court documents obtained by New Times, Mesa police were dispatched to a bus stop at 1441 East Broadway Road in Mesa about 10 p.m. yesterday in response to an attempted armed robbery.

The victim told officers the assailant, later identified as Rios, approached him and said to hand over his bike or he would “get cut up.” Rios then partially removed the sword from its sheath, apparently to let the victim know he meant business.

The victim positioned the bike in between himself and the sword-wielding Rios. Luckily, a bus showed up and the victim was able to escape without getting “cut up”—and without losing his bike.

The victim then called police.

Police canvassed the area looking for a person who matched the description provided by the victim. That’s when they found Rios (identified by his Arizona Department of Corrections ID card)—who was wearing the exact outfit described by the victim—walking in the middle of the road “yelling and screaming.” He was taken into custody.

Police also spoke to residents in the area, one of whom told officers two men—one of whom was carrying a samurai sword and matched Rios’ description—walked by his house and asked if they could stash a bicycle in his carport. The resident told them “no” and to get off of his property.

Officers ran a records check and found Rios’ address. They went to his house and met his cousin, who told them Rios had recently taken his samurai sword, but had since returned it. The cousin was not with Rios at the time of the failed robbery, police note in Rios’ arrest report.

Rios, who has a long history of theft convictions, was booked into a Maricopa County jail on one count of armed robbery with a weapon, a class-two felony.

OTOH, if you need to defend yourself,  or you’re taking on a burglar.........

Comment #37: Xeranar on 12/21 at 02:37 AM

I’m saying your argument is flawed in that you want no guns at all which is an extreme and unrealistic view within the majority of the US.

See, you’re doing it again.  The argument is “flawed” because a bunch of people disagree with its conclusion?  I mean, if you’d said that it was a reasonably measure that has little chance of passing because of broken politics (as I admitted) that would be one thing; but how do you jump from that to “flawed”?

Society is reactionary to violence, we can’t do future crime as you so wish.

I’m having a hard time understanding what the heck that sentence even means, but I’ll try my best.

You seem to be claiming that when the topic of violence is broached, society’s political response to it tends to be emotional and thus lead to policies that reflect a pretty fundamental desire to do something that makes us feel “safe” in the short term.  In that context, guns give most of their owners a feeling of safety and an illusion of control—the fantasy that the gun will enable them to defend themselves against a criminal comforts them.

Well, that falls into the same category of “things that make the passage of gun control difficult.”  Not as “Things that mean that gun control is a flawed policy,” as you wish to make it.

If the conservatives followed this kind of logic, they would have never garnered all the power they did over the past 40 years.  “Oh, I guess the USA is after all a liberal country with labor protection and high redistributive taxes.  It’s an extreme and unrealistic view with the majority of the US to lower taxes on the rich and try to increase the gap between the rich and the rest of us.”

It is an enshrined right to own a firearm and I see no reason to unravel that.

Oh boy, how did we get to “shrines” and the not-so-judicially-accepted doctrine of inalterability and uninterpretability of the Constitution?

Also for the record: 99% of the municipalities I’ve been to have almost no rules regarding swords or other medieval weaponry.  So to somehow argue that it’s harder to move a sword than a gun is ludicrous.

I find that hard to believe.  For example, with limited exceptions (e.g. historical reenactments), carrying a sword is illegal in California and Texas.  This is already 20% of the US population, and I haven’t even looked at other states.

Violence is a reactionary issue that can’t be dealt with by showing future crime force on it.

What the heck does that even mean?

Comment #35: Crissa on 12/21 at 12:26 AM

No, not ‘not really’ you dumbfuck.

Thank you!

Local gun control laws means the ass who shows up with a gun can be arrested before they do something with it.

“Can” is not will.  Of all of the jurisdictions flying the US flag, Puerto Rico might be the strictest one on gun control.  Gun ownership requires a government-issued permit.  To get this permit you must pass an examination by a gun club certified by the government, and produce three affidavits from three unrelated people vouching for your good character.  You must let them take your fingerprints and put them in a database to get the permit.  The standard permit only allows you to own two guns.  Carry is a different permit that’s heavily restricted.  You may only buy ammo in calibers for guns that you own.  There’s an assault weapons ban similar to the California one and former federal one.

Puerto Rico is awash with illegal firearms.  The main source for these guns is Florida.  The strict local gun laws there do lead to many arrests where the police search somebody for another reason, find an illegal gun on them, and bring firearms charges.  But still, as I understand it, no US jurisdiction has as many firearm deaths per capita as Puerto Rico.

A bunch of liberals on the other side trying to eradicate all firearms of any type.

I’m sure there are plenty of liberals in your head arguing for this, but I’ll be danged if I’ve ever met one.  For example, I’ve never met a single liberal who either:

1) wishes to ban hunting rifles or shotguns, or
2) wishes to ban military usage of firearms.

PM -
For 1 - I have.  They were almost all here in MA, so it may be a regional/urban thing as they also were from eastern MA (Boston).  The ones who were not in MA were recent transplants from urban CA to urban-rural WA and ID, and were people who had no understanding that preditors attack livestock or that many people still hunt both for food and to control populations in confined and broken up wilderness areas. 
I believe 2 is a different discussion as it is clear from context that Jayn meant private citizen gun ownership and that is what the rest of us were discussing.

I have seriously never met anyone who wants to *ban* hunting arms.  I’ve met plenty of confused people who’d like to track them.  And I’ve met plenty of sanctimonious pricks who will go on for years bout how nobody needs one.  But I’ve seriously never met anyone who, if asked, “what about hunting weapons in rural areas?” said, “Oh yeah, ban those too.”

This puts aside the fact that, even if such people exist, they are such a tiny minority that I have never heard that opinion voiced on a television.  Much less by an elected official or member of a major Party establishment.

Setting them out as one of the poles of the debate is an a priori admission of intellectual dishonesty.

The poles on the gun control debate are absolutists who think every (white) person in this country should have an antitank rifle and people who live in the cities and want all handguns and semiauto and auto weapons banned.  Neither pole has a large number of people in it, but no one is arguing (from the right) that private ownership of nukes is a good idea, and nobody is arguing (from the left) that air rifles should be banned.