Shot in the Dark

Category: The Fact-Check Scam

  • All The Facts That The Agenda And Narrative Demand

    Sean Higgins at the WashEx finds yet another case of a major-media “fact-checker” burying inconvenient facts to slander gun owners. Washington Post Fact Check columnist Glenn Kessler gives Rep. Louis Gohmert, R-Texas, “three pinocchios” for claiming, as he did yesterday on Fox News Sunday, that so-called right-to-carry laws reduce crime. So, that’s settled then? There’s no evidence…

  • Standing Pat

    I heard this last week on “Poligraph”, MPR’s self-styled “Politifact” homage. “Poligraph” reporter Catherine Richert was “fact-checking” statements from the GOP and DFL about the state budget.  She quoted Governor Messinger Dayton: You know,[the wealthiest] were paying the higher rates during the 1990s when President Clinton was in office, and we enjoyed boom years in…

  • What If The Fact-Checkers Just Plain Don’t Know Facts?

    Joe Doakes writes: Pioneer Press On-Line forwarded article from NationalJournal “fact-checking” the debate, that included this bit: Romney on assault weapons ban: Responding to a question about assault weapons, Romney said, “We, of course, don’t want automatic weapons, which is already illegal in this country.” Actually, the federal ban on assault weapons — first enacted…

  • How The Praetorian Guard Works

    Obama guts the Clinton-era “Work for Welfare” requirements. Romney calls Obama on it. Clinton lies about it from the podium at the DNC. And America’s “fact-check” industry lines up behind Obama, no matter how they need to forcibly bugger “fact” to do it: PolitiFact did link to [welfare expert and former Clinton staffer Robert Rector,…

  • Chanting Points Memo: “Minnesota Poll” Has Your Delivery Of Sandbags Right Here

    Yesterday, the Star Tribune “Minnesota Poll” also delivered its mid-cycle tally of support for the Voter ID Amendment. And coming barely a week after the generally-accurate Survey USA poll showing Voter ID passing by a 2:1 margin, the Strib would have you believe…: Slightly more than half of likely voters polled — 52 percent — want the changes…

  • Nope, No Bias Here

    The grandfather – great-grandfather? – of the “Fact-Check” industry, “60 Minutes whitewashes for Obama: Tonight, CBS aired a 60 Minutes interview with President Obama. But curiously enough, the news magazine show did not air a clip of Obama admitting to interviewer Steve Kroft that some of his campaign ads contain mistakes and that some even…

  • Facts In The Dark, Part IV: Clarity

    Call me a cynic, but for me, the prototype of all of the “fact-checking” columns in today’s mainstream media was in this piece here: With the world breathing a collective sigh of relief following the violence-free passage into the year 2000, an international coalition of terrorists issued a reminder Monday that the new millennium does…

  • Lying About Lying

    What Obama Said: “Sometimes they just make things up. But they’ve got a bunch of folks who can write $10 million checks, and they’ll just keep on running them,” he said. “I mean, somebody was challenging one of their ads — they made it up — about work and welfare. And every outlet said this…

  • Facts In The Dark, Part III: “Poligraph” And Selection Bias

    For years, now, I’ve had questions about how politicians’ statements get selected for MPR’s “Poligraph”. If you Google the feature, one might be forgiven for thinking the feature should be named “MPR’s Michele Bachmann Bureau”.  That’d be unfair; Poligraph reporter Catherine Richert does spread some of the fact-checking love around among parties. But I do…

  • Facts In The Dark, Part II: “Poligraph” And The Path Not Taken

    Yesterday, I suggested that it might be a good idea for Minnesota Public Radio’s “Poligraph” feature (for whom Cathy Richert is listed as the “lead reporter”) might do well to add an “Oversimplified” rating to its rather cut-and-dried set of verdicts. I suggested it because at first blush, it might be used to cover Richert’s own…

  • Facts In The Dark, Part I: “Poligraph” And The Wheeled Goalposts

    Over the past week, we’ve seen ample, fairly conclusive evidence that the mainstream media’s “Fact Checking” industry is, to a great extent, part of the Obama Administration’s propaganda mill, part of the mainstream media’s major ongoing role as Praetorian Guard for the liberal establishment. But what about Minnesota Public Radio? I’ve acknowledged many times in…

  • PolitiPutAForkInIt

    While the WaPo’s “Politifiact” claims impartiality, they are in fact strongly biased to the left. No, there’s math and everything.

  • Perish The Thought

    Is the WaPo’s “Politifact” biased toward the left? Why, what would ever give you that idea?

  • Further Evidence…

    …that the Light Worker’s campaign is aimed at the one group he’s got a shot with: the not very well informed: This is an ad, as Ed points out, that even left-leaning Politifact has rated “pants on fire”. As this blog has been noting for quite some time now, the Democrat strategy seems to be…

  • All The Narrative That’s Fit To Buff

    Jim Treacher notes what many conservative observers have long known; that thing the leftymedia and lefty “alt” media refer to as “fact-checking” is really no more than Democrat narrative-buffing. “Politifact”, it seems, is less interested in “facts” than in “upholding the Democrat side of the story“. Matthew Hoy writes:   In 2009, Judicial Watch made…

  • An Editorial Without A Word Of Truth

    The Strib finally did it. The Strib’s editorial board, in serving in its unstated capacity as stenographers for the DFL and its agenda, have written some howlers over the years; countering them has provided a constant source of material for Minnesota’s large, thriving center-right alternative media for a solid decade now. But over the weekend,…

  • No Obvious Rant, No Overt Slant

    To: Catharine Richert, “Poligraph” writer at MPR From: Mitch Berg, mere peasant Re: Here’s a dandy story idea! Ms. Richert, You’ve been doing “Poligraph” at Mnnesota Public Radio for quite some time now.   The ongoing feature purports to fact-check Minnesota politicians’ statements. Now, a quick glance through the Poligraph page seems to show that…

  • Crimes And Misdemeanors Against Fact

    Yesterday, I tackled a Strib op-ed by Jim Backstrom.  Backstrom, the Dakota County Attorney, wrote the latest in a long string of fact-challenged diatribes against the rights of the rigorously-law-abiding gun owner. Now, Backstrom – who is not just an elected public official, but one in charge of enforcing the law by prosecuting accused criminals…

  • Chanting Points Memo: “Emmer Lied About LGA!”

    Some background:  Local Government Aid was started in the late sixties/early seventies to help poorer cities in outstate Minnesota afford some of the newer infrastructure – schools, roads, police, water treatment, etc – that they couldn’t have on their own tax bases. The local leftyblogbuildup has been carping about this piece in Polinaut, which “fact-checked”…