#Politifact

[capricorn-0mnikorn]

Summary: Tracking 99 of Biden's most important campaign promises (listing in the order presented on the website)-- what promises he's kept, what promises he's compromised on, which he's broken outright, which promises are delayed/postponed, and which promises are in the works.

TL;DR (listing in my own order, 'cause it's what makes sense to me):

27% Kept* 34% In the Works 31% Postponed / Stalled (Note Well: most of the promises in the two categories above are taking so long because he has, by law, to work with Republicans who are actively hostile to his agenda, and are doing everything they can to sabotage his efforts -- which is why it's so important to vote "down ticket," as well, and not just focus on the Presidential race; case in point: just look at how much trouble Texas Governor Abbot is causing for the whole nation, right now, re: Immigration and Asylum-seekers' rights) 5% Compromised On 1% Promises Broken**

Also, Pay attention to what the promises he's made actually are, and whether you want him to keep them

(Compared to, say, the promises / threats Donald Trump and Nikki Haley are making)

*A big promise kept listed is: "Get COVID under control;" YMMV on whether that's true, or not, or if it's even possible (in other words, 'define your terms')

**Just one broken promise: No new fracking on federal lands. And I am angry about that. But not angry enough to risk Trump getting back into power.

#biden presidency #campaign promises record #politifact #not the same

[strangebiology]

My latest for PolitiFact - finally, a really easy fact-check.

The claim is that "climate activists vow to slaughter millions of dogs to reduce carbon pawprint."

They even "cite" a CNN article.

The CNN article says literally nothing about anyone even faintly suggesting anyone kill anything. There's no "vow," there's no "millions of dogs." It's just a study saying "there is a climate impact of pets, there are some ways to reduce the impact, I'm not even saying you should do them, and none of them involve killing them."

#PolitiFact #Fact-checking

[tomorrowusa]

There is an enormous amount of competition for PolitiFact's 2023 Lie of the Year award. But the decision has been made and the dubious honor goes to Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

As pundits and politicos spar over whether Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s presidential campaign will factor into the outcome of the 2024 election, one thing is clear: Kennedy’s political following is built on a movement that seeks to legitimize conspiracy theories. His claims decrying vaccines have roiled scientists and medical experts and stoked anger over whether his work harms children. He has made suggestions about the cause of COVID-19 that he acknowledges sound racist and antisemitic. Bolstered by his famous name and family’s legacy, his campaign of conspiracy theories has gained an electoral and financial foothold. He is running as an independent — having abandoned his pursuit of the Democratic Party nomination — and raised more than $15 million. A political action committee pledged to spend between $10 million and $15 million to get his name on the ballot in 10 states.  Even though he spent the past two decades as a prominent leader of the anti-vaccine movement, Kennedy rejects a blanket "anti-vax" label that he told Fox News in July makes him "look crazy, like a conspiracy theorist." But Kennedy draws bogus conclusions from scientific work. He employs "circumstantial evidence" as if it is proof. In TV, podcast and political appearances for his campaign in 2023, Kennedy steadfastly maintained:

Vaccines cause autism.

No childhood vaccines "have ever been tested in a safety study pre-licensing."

There is "tremendous circumstantial evidence" that psychiatric drugs cause mass shootings, and the National Institutes of Health refuses to research the link out of deference to pharmaceutical companies.

Ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine were discredited as COVID-19 treatments so COVID-19 vaccines could be granted emergency use authorization, a win for Big Pharma. 

Exposure to the pesticide atrazine contributes to gender dysphoria in children.

COVID-19 is "targeted to attack Caucasians and black people. The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese."

His off the scale and totally unsupported conspiracy theories are not confined to autism, vaccines, immunity, and COVID-19.

For Kennedy, the conspiracies aren’t limited to public health. He claims "members of the CIA" were involved in the assassination of his uncle, John F. Kennedy. He doesn’t "believe that (Sirhan) Sirhan’s bullets ever hit my father," Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, D-N.Y. He insists the 2004 presidential election was stolen from Democratic candidate John Kerry. News organizations, including PolitiFact, have documented why those claims, and many others, are false, speculative or conspiracy-minded. Kennedy has sat for numerous interviews and dismissed the critics, not with the grievance and bluster of former President Donald Trump, but with a calm demeanor. He amplifies the alleged plot and repeats dubious scientific evidence and historical detail.  Will his approach translate to votes? According to polls since November of a three-way matchup between President Joe Biden, Trump and Kennedy, Kennedy pulled 16% to 22% of respondents. Kennedy’s movement exemplifies the resonance of conspiratorial views. Misinformers with organized efforts are rewarded with money and loyalty. But that doesn’t make the claims true. Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s campaign based on false theories is PolitiFact’s 2023 Lie of the Year.

A Reminder: RFK Jr. has been politically disowned by other members of the Kennedy extended family. They do not support his bizarre conspiracy theories and other rantings. He is trying to capitalize on his family name even though he is a disgrace to the heritage of his uncles and father.

Nobody should vote for him thinking that he will bring back Camelot. RFK Jr. is basically an organic Trump without the makeup.

#politifact #rfk jr. #robert f. kennedy jr. #lies #liar of the year #conspiracy theories #autism #vaccines #covid-19 #atrazine #mass shootings #third parties #election 2024

[thepro-lifemovement]

The U.S. Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey has led abortion supporters to propose sweeping legislation, and to mislead Americans about pro-life legislation.

One example is a claim, repeated by many news outlets, that state laws against abortion forbid effective treatment of women undergoing miscarriages or ectopic pregnancies. That claim has been rebutted again and again, but continues to appear in online news outlets.

Occasionally such misinformation is spread even by outlets whose ostensible reason for existence is to fact-check public claims by others.

A case in point is an August 1 post by Politifact. It responded to a statement by Rep. Marianette Miller-Meeks (R-IA) about an abortion proposal supported by almost all Democrats in Congress, the “Women’s Health Protection Act” (H.R. 8296).[1] She and others opposing the bill have said it “would permit abortion up until delivery.”

Politifact accurately quoted the bill on this point: States must permit abortions “when, in the good-faith medical judgment of the treating health care provider, continuation of the pregnancy would pose a risk to the pregnant patient’s life or health.” After this quote, however, Politifact stumbled. 

Apparently ignoring its own quote, it proceeded to rate the Congresswoman’s claim as “mostly false” because “A reading of the bill shows that H.R. 8296 permits abortion up until delivery, but only if it is deemed necessary to protect the life of the patient.”

In short, it is Politifact’s claim that must be rated as false, for two reasons. It ignores the expansive meaning “health” has been given in the abortion context; and it misreads H.R. 8296 as allowing post-viability abortion only when “necessary” to preserve the woman’s health. This careless “fact check” may have been intended to downplay the extremism of abortion advocates, and/or to discredit the pro-life members who have objections. It succeeds only in discrediting itself.

#prolife news #politifact #fact vs fiction #H.R. 8296

[pressnewsagencyllc]

Four years after shelter-in-place, COVID-19 misinformation persists - Poynter

From spring break parties to Mardi Gras, many people remember the last major “normal” thing they did before the novel coronavirus pandemic dawned, forcing governments worldwide to issue stay-at-home advisories and shutdowns. Even before the first case of COVID-19 was detected in the U.S., fears and uncertainties helped spur misinformation’s rapid spread. In March 2020, schools closed, employers…

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#Coronavirus #COVID-19 #PolitiFact

[faultfalha]

The first Republican debate on Fox News caused a stir, producing an upheaval among viewers. All of the candidates expressed their views, both right and wrong, in clever and persuasive ways. Some believed that the most right-wing candidates revealed a promising outlook on fiscal policy and foreign affairs, while others found fault with their focus on certain issues. The sides of the debate were like pieces of an incomplete puzzle, each candidate bringing something new to the table, as if conjured by a mysterious force. New grounds were cracked open, old thoughts were re-examined, and bold ideas began to take root. Though no single candidate had the answer, the discussion stimulated by the debate was sure to lead to something far greater than the sum of its parts. The conversation at hand was like a journey, unpredictable and ever-changing, that pushed the boundaries of ideas and opinions. Political enthusiasts saw this moment as a great opportunity, while others saw mere chaos. In any case, the first Republican debate on Fox News was a notable event in the ever-evolving world of politics.

#Fact-Checking #Debate #Debates #political debate #PolitiFact #fault #Republican debate #Fox News #highlights #secure border #tax reform

[calicojack1718]

The "Free Speech" Gaslighting Defense Proves the GOP's Intent to End American Democracy

The conservatives of the country are all in for the #GOPDystopia and authoritarianism. The popular defense of Trump in the DC indictment as being a free speech violation is gaslighting and shows how badly they want Trump's authoritarian regime

SUMMARY: This post analyzes the popular conservative defense of Trump’s DC indictment as being a violation of his free speech rights. Such claims are so clearly contrary to reality that they constitute gaslighting and indicate just how widespread conservative disdain for our democracy and rights are. KEYWORDS: Free speech, Gaslighting, Indictment, Trump, #GOPDystopia, Conservatives Happy…

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#Elements of a Crime #Federal Indictment #Fox & Friends Weekends #Free Speech #Gaslighting #GOP #Indictment #Lost #Lost Not Stolen #Politico #Politifact #Republican Party #The Wall Street Journal #Will Cain

[chubbycaucasianchristiancloseted]

How does mainstream media continue to get this wrong OR are they just lying?

How does mainstream media continue to get this wrong OR are they just lying? PolitiFact’s “Fact check” is far from being “Half True” and should at the very least be “Mostly True”. We also know from pictures and WhatsApp messages that Joe Biden’s claim of never talking to his son about his business dealings is 100% false.

Direct Quotes:

The episode involved his son Hunter Biden’s work on behalf of a Ukrainian energy company at a time when the elder Biden was vice president and a key figure in U.S. policy on Ukraine.

Hunter Biden did hold a directorship for a Ukrainian gas company while his father was vice president. Experts agree that Hunter Biden's acceptance of the position created a conflict of interest for his father. 

The position with Burisma came at a time when the younger Biden had joined with Christopher Heinz (the stepson of then-Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass.) and Devon Archer (a Kerry family friend) in a string of investment and consulting firms. Firms run by Biden and Archer "pursued business with international entities that had a stake in American foreign policy decisions, sometimes in countries where connections implied political influence and protection," the New York Times reported.

The Biden campaign told PolitiFact that the vice president learned about his son's role on the board through media reports and never discussed anything related to this company with his son.

A year and a half later, the New York Times published an article that suggested that "the credibility of the vice president’s anti-corruption message may have been undermined" by Hunter Biden’s dealings with the company.

The post said Biden threatened to withhold $1 billion unless the prosecutor -- Shokin – was fired. Biden didn’t just make a threat to withhold aid unless Shokin was sacked -- it succeeded.

We found wide agreement among Ukraine policy experts that Hunter Biden’s decision to become a director for Burisma presented a serious conflict of interest.

The image gets individual pieces of this assertion right -- Hunter Biden was a director of the company, and Joe Biden did leverage U.S. aid to  fire a prosecutor.

#USA #TheChubbyCaucasianChristianClosetedConservative #HunterBiden #Biden #PolitiFact

[strangebiology]

My latest for PolitiFact! This one isn't really a fact-check because it's more like, "people have said things with implications, but whether those implications are correct is complicated." Specifically, this was written in response to an exchange where a journalist asked the Acting Director of the National Hurricane Center about the connection between climate change and Hurricane Ian, and critics said the NOAA person "shut down" the journalist.

But, does climate change cause hurricanes?

Here's a good quote:

"The problem is akin to having a grandparent who dies of lung cancer and who had smoked two packs a day," Kerry Emanuel, a climate scientist with a specialty in hurricane physics at MIT, wrote in an email. "You can say that his smoking made his cancer more likely, but some people who never smoked still get lung cancer, and some who smoked heavily lived until well into their 90s.

"Climate change has made intense, highly precipitating storms like Ian more likely."

I find that's true with most things. There is never one single cause of anything good or bad - another example is a car crash. Did you crash because you didn't get enough sleep last night, the other car was going a little too fast to respond in time, the road was just a little wet? Last time you drove under those conditions you were fine, why did you crash this time? Maybe if one of those elements hadn't been there the crash wouldn't have happened. Or maybe there would have been another problem, maybe the crash would have been worse. That's why we try to mitigate risk on multiple levels (seatbelts, speed limits, etc) even though a lack of those things won't "cause" accidents.

But I should point out, the connection between climate change and hurricanes is quite a bit more complicated than the connection between smoking and lung cancer, at the moment anyway. Read the article for more detail.

#my journalism #politifact #my politifact bylines #my bylines #climate change #hurricanes

[tomorrowusa]

Blake Masters is the Trump Republican candidate for US Senate from Arizona.

Masters is so racist that if he campaigned in KKK robes, people would regard his costume as redundant.

You may know Blake Masters, the Republican candidate for Senate in Arizona, as one of the guys who got $10 million from anti-Democratic billionaire Peter Thiel or as the candidate endorsed by a prominent Nazi. But over the past few months, Thiel’s ex-stenographer has been trying to jolt his way into the minds of the electorate by stripping away the subtext of common Republican talking points and getting directly to racist ideas, from blasting the first Black vice-president as an unqualified “affirmative action” hire to blaming “Black people” (yes, really) for most gun violence in the U.S. It’s worth a closer look at his rhetoric, given the possibility he could beat Democratic incumbent Mark Kelly in November.

Masters is a disciple of semi-fascist Peter Thiel. He was enthusiastically endorsed by Donald Trump in the Arizona primary. But it only gets worse from there.

Masters thinks that minorities and people of color are innately inferior.

Labeling Black candidates with ambitious CVs as unqualified, from Barack Obama to Ketanji Brown Jackson, is a time-honored tradition by politicians like Masters. As for Harris, she was elected cumulatively by tens of millions of people as San Francisco district attorney, California attorney general, and U.S. senator before she was also elected as vice-president.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson has more brains in her toenail than Masters has in his empty skull.

Of course Masters joins Tucker Carlson and other racists in pushing so-called “replacement theory”.

In so many words, the idea Masters is suggesting is the replacement theory, a tenet of white nationalism cited by racist mass shooters across the country, most recently in Buffalo. In a statement to the New York Times, Masters doubled down, saying, “It is obvious to everyone that Democrats see illegal immigrants as future voters. No ‘theory’ is needed to observe that.”

While the concept moved from the fringe to the mainstream of the party during the Trump administration, it’s an interesting policy for Masters to adopt, given that more than a third of Arizona is Latino and that he is also trying to court socially conservative Latino voters moving away from the Democratic Party.

Masters bizarrely doesn’t care if his idiocy alienates over a third of Arizona’s voters.

But wait, there’s more! Blake Masters has a long history of radical anti-abortion positions — which he doesn’t want Arizona voters to know about.

Masters is trying to keep Arizona voters from knowing that he is an anti-abortion extremist. He has been hilariously deleting his previously stated hardline anti-abortion views from his site.

Blake Masters scrubbed his website again. Is anybody buying his sudden makeover?

This creative editing only draws attention to his long term stance of wanting to regulate the nation’s vaginas.

Politifact has judged the contention that Masters favors a nationwide abortion ban as “Mostly True”.

Blake Masters “wants to pass a national ban on abortion”

We cannot trust Trump Republicans on abortion. All three of Trump’s appointees to the US Supreme Court testified in Senate confirmation hearings that they regarded Roe v. Wade as “established law”. SPOILER ALERT: They lied at the hearings. They all enthusiastically supported the far right’s abolition of a national right to abortion as soon as they had a chance on the court.

There’s no reason to believe that Blake Masters’s editing of his site means that he has changed his fanatical anti-abortion positions at all. It’s just more of the same old Trump Republican bullshit.

#blake masters #arizona #peter thiel #us senate #trump republicans #racism #semi-fascism #abortion #the sanctity of reproductive freedom #politifact #midterm elections #election 2022

[subsidystadium]

The Washington Commanders/Commanders have officially stopped screwing over Richmond, Virginia

The year is 2012. The city of Richmond at this time was dealing with “revenue shortfalls” that “forced (public) schools to cut millions of dollars … forcing scores of layoffs, furloughs and other job cuts”. What better time to help out a billionaire sports owner. That year, the Washington Redskins (Commanders will be used from now on) announced that their training camp would move 100 miles south…

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#Chmura #Daniel Synder #Economic Analysis #Governor #Loudoun #Mangum Consulting #NFL #PolitiFact #Richmond #Richmond Times-Dispatch #SBNation #Style Weekly #USAToday #Virginia #Washington Commanders #Washington DC #Washington Post #Washington Redskins

[didanawisgi]

#politifact #lol #covid-19 vaccine #steve kirsch

[dfe2012]

Bent Truth- The PolitiFact Agenda

Screenshot of Politifact truth-o-meter PolitiFact claims, “Our only agenda is to publish the truth”. Yet the actual facts indicate quite the contrary. PolitiFact’s true agenda appears to be geared to protecting liberal politicians by downplaying (or ignoring) their corrupt words and deeds- while concurrently hammering conservatives for their statements. PolitiFact accomplishes this largely…

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#PolitiFact

[hellsdaydreamwastaken]

I actually transitioned solely so it would be more socially acceptable to drink those fruity drinks at the bar that only girls are meant to order but they look really good. I was planning to detransition again afterwards but then I got Opening-of-Misty-Beethovened and now there's no going back.

#this is what actually happened to me #true story #legit #politifact rated true