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Eugene Kiely’s misleading spin

“Cheney wrongly claimed that the U.S. prosecuted Japanese soldiers ‘for a lot of stuff’ but ‘not for waterboarding.’ While they weren’t solely prosecuted for waterboarding, Japanese soldiers were prosecuted for torturing American prisoners, including the use of ‘water torture.’” —Annenberg Fact Check Editor Eugene Kiely, from the FactCheck.org article “Cheney’s Tortured Facts”   Overview Why pick solely on PolitiFact and…
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Torture narrative trumps facts at PolitiFact

There’s no solid evidence that waterboarding works. https://t.co/rWBEn8n9r2 — Bill Adair (@BillAdairDuke) May 24, 2016   Bill Adair, Duke University’s Knight professor of computational journalism, helped found PolitiFact. That likely helps explain his “Truth-O-Meter”-ish Twitter avatar. Adair’s tweet about waterboarding helps show the way mainstream fact checkers help reinforce false partisan beliefs, in this case the popular narrative that torture…
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Did Henry Kissinger call ‘depopulation’ a priority?

Quote Check: Attributed to former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger: “Depopulation should be the highest priority of foreign policy towards the third world, because the US economy will require large and increasing amounts of minerals from abroad, especially from less developed countries.”   Overview We found no good evidence to support attributing the above quotation to Kissinger.   The Facts…
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Messages to PolitiFact Missouri about the Will Kraus fact check

On Jan. 4, 2016, we sent the following message to PolitiFact Missouri writer Adam Aton. Though we included editor Mike Jenner in the salutation, we neglected to list Jenner as a recipient. Dear Mr. Adam Aton, Mr. Mike Jenner I’m a fact-checking journalist preparing an evaluation of PolitiFact MIssouri’s fact check of Will Kraus. Your fact check faults Kraus for asserting…
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Voter I.D.: PolitiFact Missouri vs. Will Kraus

Will Kraus “Says Missouri needs a voter I.D. law because ‘there’s over 16 people in the state of Missouri who have been convicted of some type of voter fraud.’” —PolitiFact Missouri   Overview We don’t see the evidence supporting PolitiFact Missouri’s interpretation of Kraus’ remarks. We judge PolitiFact Missouri ruled “Half True” on a distorted version of Kraus’ claim. The…
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Missives to Qiu and Holan about the Carson tax plan

Email interview questions posed to PolitiFact writer Linda Qiu and PolitiFact editor Angie Drobnic Holan through their published email addresses. Note neither replied to the messages, which is common with PolitiFact staffers. If we receive any reply on this subject we will add the reply to this page. Nov. 5, 2015: Dear Linda Qiu, Angie Drobnic Holan, The Facebook version…
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Trump supporters & truth: A reply to Rider University’s Michelle A. Amazeen

Last week I posted in reply to Politico’s Jack Shafer, who suggested in an article that Trump supporters don’t care if Trump does not tell the truth. We responded with a post suggesting Trump supporters have reason to distrust fact checkers such as PolitiFact. We tagged Shafer in a tweet highlighting our reply and Shafer retweeted it. Meanwhile Michelle A….
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A reply to Politico’s Jack Shafer

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In a Dec. 24, 2015 column, Politico’s Jack Shafer wonders why the mainstream media fact checkers have no discernible effect on the presidential race. Republican Donald Trump, for example, pays them about the same heed Godzilla pays the Japanese Air Force. Shafer writes: It would stand to reason that the documentation of Trump’s lies—not to mention his rudeness and crudeness—would…
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PolitiFact vs. Rubio on defense spending

Back in May 2015 PolitiFact, specifically PolitiFact Florida, published an amazingly incompetent fact check. PolitiFact Florida’s fact check looked at whether Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio was right that the United States is not building aircraft, aircraft carriers and submarines. PolitiFact Florida said it found plenty of evidence the United States was building aircraft, aircraft carriers and submarines, rating Rubio’s…
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