Tag: Politifact

Thanks for the fact checkers

Thanks for the fact checkers

Posted on by Jack

Years ago Daniel Patrick Moynihan said “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.”

But now people seem to be armed with their own facts. Supposed facts are claimed to support both sides of an argument. Unfortunately it is the claim that gets the attention and relatively few hear about the basis of the claimed fact later.

For example, I am sure many of us saw the claim that about 75% of small businesses will have to fire workers or cut their hours as a result of ObamaCare. This claim was based on a survey or more accurately what the survey was said to show. Of course, the survey showed no such thing but that part of the story was not very prominent in the news.

The Fact Checker of the Washington Post recently examined this claim and lays out the facts and demonstrates why this claim is far from fact. Lest anyone think this is a partisan criticism, I should point out that this article has links to previous articles by this fact checker criticizing President Obama and the NRA for misusing survey data.

Two other sites I like for checking the factual basis of claims are Politifact and FactCheck.org.

Don’t accept the “facts” presented by either side without some critical thinking and checking. Having fact checkers helps us do that. Thanks to the fact checkers.

See proposed House bills before vote

See proposed House bills before vote

Posted on by Jack

Barack Obama promised that bills would be available on the White House website for public comment (for 5 days) before he signed them as president. It didn’t always work out that way. This is a promise broken according to PolitiFact.com which does a fine job of following up on political promises.

And it probably would have been better to see proposed bills before vote. Well that is exactly what Speaker of the House John Boehner promises. The House rule is now that a bill should be available online for three days before a vote. The public will have time to read a bill and respond to their Representative before a vote. This sounds great but we’ll have to see how it works out. Politifact will be watching.