An independent experimental fact-checking site, exploring and advocating ways to make fact-checking better.
We used the wrong roll call vote to provide background information on our fact check of the House Republican Conference claim that President Obama was responsible for the sequestration idea. As a temporary measure, on Feb. 13 we added strikethroughs to the inaccurate passages in the posted version of the fact check. We retain the strikethroughs here in preserving the…
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“We can’t ask senior citizens and working families to shoulder the entire burden of deficit reduction while asking nothing more from the wealthiest and the most powerful.” –President Obama Overview The Facts In discussing Medicare reform during his 2013 State of the Union address, President Obama said the following (bold emphasis added): Yes, the biggest driver of our…
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“I would remind Leader Cantor and his Republican colleagues of the seriousness of delay. Every minute House Republicans wait to act, another 24 Americans will become victims of domestic violence. Every day House Republicans stall, another three women will die at the hands of their abusers. Every year House Republicans put off action in order to please extremists within their…
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Veteran journalism critic John McManus came forth with a good article on evaluating online information sources, published online by PBS. “Don’t Be Fooled: Use the SMELL Test To Separate Fact from Fiction Online” encourages readers to test claims with a process that follows the SMELL acronym: Introducing the SMELL test S stands for Source. Who is providing the information?…
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“FACT: It’s President Obama’s Sequester” –The United States House of Representatives Republican Conference Overview President Obama proposed the sequester. But Republicans who agreed to or voted for the sequestration deal get to share ownership of the policy once implemented. The Facts Reporter Bob Woodward reported in his book “The Price of Politics” that the budget sequestration idea, particularly for…
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We’re close to making the site look like the way we planned it. We have revised the pages of posts to show only the beginning of stories and posts with a “Continue reading” option, making it much easier to see all the recent stories with just a bit of scrolling. The images accompanying the stories and posts give the site…
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We were sure we’d need a few more fallacy icons eventually. For some, it’s easier to conceive a design than for others, and because of the ease of the design we started work on a “red herring” design last week. The red herring fallacy is one of the fallacies of distraction, named for the way a reeking fish might throw…
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“This bill surrenders the hostage Republicans have taken in the past by decoupling the full faith and credit of the United States from cuts to Social Security and Medicare, or anything else. … By passing this bill, Republicans are joining Democrats to say we will not hold the full faith and credit of the United States hostage, and we will…
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PolitiFact Texas: “Contrary to Gohmert’s characterization … Washington was not speaking about citizens arming themselves in case of government tyranny. Quite the opposite: The president and former general was calling for disciplined troops to fight on behalf of the government.” Overview PolitiFact Texas builds a dandy straw man in honor of Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas). The Facts The line from…
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Attributed to Mark Twain on Facebook and elsewhere: “Religion was invented when the first con man met the first fool.” The Facts: Mark Twain was the pen name of American author Samuel Clemens (1835-1910). Quite a few quotations disparaging religion came from Twain, though he was apparently a Presbyterian. So what about the above quotation that often accompanies a picture…
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