Polifact Rates the Candidates (Spoiler: Trump Lies, Lies, Lies, Takes A Breath, Then Lies Some More)

[VulcanNervPinch]

http://www.aol.com/article/2016/07/...ant-you-to-ignore-this-fact-checker/21423721/
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2016/jun/29/fact-checking-2016-clinton-trump/

Political fact-checking site PolitiFact released its midyear report for the 2016 election, and it wasn't kind to Donald Trump.

Trump has more statements rated Pants on Fire, 30, than the 21 other candidates for president we’ve fact-checked this cycle combined.

While the 2016 campaign has been criticized as being fact-free, the most awarded rating to the presidential candidates has actually been Mostly True
(Which is to say: no, everybody isn't lying their heads off)

60.13%
Percentage of Donald Trump claims that have been rated False or Pants on Fire.
2.53%
Percentage of Donald Trump claims rated True since he started his campaign.

13.33%
Percentage of claims made by Hillary Clinton rated False or Pants on Fire.
13.33%
Percentage of claims made by Hillary Clinton rated True during the 2016 campaign.

Don't worry, though, Trump fans, the rest of us have learned the drill by now:

"This is all meaningless, because everybody knows how biased the facts are against Trump!"

 

[Thunderflash500]

Hillary forcing herself to cry because she thought it would make her appear more emotional is more gross than anything Trump has supposedly lied about.

 

[mike sherry]

Let's be honest, politifact is far from unbiased

 

[44nutman]

IN B4 the Trumpeteers Dodge, Duck, Dip, Dive, Dodge this thread mixed in with some Hilary is a terrible human being.
Yes Hilary sucks. I am voting for one of the two, not sure which one but will be embarrassed that I voted for either one of those asshats.

 

[Mr Holmes]

IN B4 the Trumpeteers Dodge, Duck, Dip, Dive, Dodge this thread mixed in with some Hilary is a terrible human being.
Yes Hilary sucks. I am voting for one of the two, not sure which one but will be embarrassed that I voted for either one of those asshats.

I'm still hoping a decent independent emerges.

 

[Mr Holmes]

Hillary forcing herself to cry because she thought it would make her appear more emotional is more gross than anything Trump has supposedly lied about.

When was this?

 

[Jack V Savage]

Let's be honest, politifact is far from unbiased

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_the_well

If you think that they got anything wrong, what is it?

 

[Thunderflash500]

When was this?

Off the top of my head I think it was in the last election.

 

[dissolved]

Looking forward to a Trump presidency.

 

[Jack V Savage]

Looking forward to a Trump presidency.

I thought you were a Christian.

 

[dissolved]

I thought you were a Christian.

Sextuple entendre in six words. Whodathunkit.

 

[K1levelgrappler]

Trump literally can't open his mouth without lying. Sad!

 

[mike sherry]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_the_well

If you think that they got anything wrong, what is it?

I have in the past mentioned specific instances of their usage of biases. It's not worth breaking this thread down into semantics over singular reviews .

The best example that comes to mind being them rating his statement that "Hillary said I wanted to give Japan nukes, what a joke" as false. The entire page seemed like they were trying to justify him saying a factual statement (Hillary did indeed say he said this) and spinning it to a lie because he "walked as close as possible to saying he endorsed the position without stating so"

It's not worth breaking this discussion into that singular instance and I will not be discussing it further. The point stands that they have a liberal bias, being organized primarily by a liberal newspaper.

I actually view poltifact as generally a good source for when they go over just the facts. They can absolutely inject bias by how they decide on a whim to make something half true, half false, false, or pants on fire false.

Which is why these aggregate scores mean nothing to me, honestly.

Poltifact can exercise selection bias, because they don't like Trump they target him more (of course he's also giving them non stop material everyday) which leads to higher bad scores.

Taking a poltifact truth meter aggregate as anything more than a single organization's view of a politician's honesty is a mistake.

 

[PrinceOfPain]

You should actually read some of the politifact criticisms of Trump.
The man lies, but they often take an obviously off-the-cuff conversational remark and dissect it as though it were intended as something more than it is.

His comment about windmills killing 'thousands of eagles' was one where I think they kinda over-killed it.

 

[dissolved]

Trump literally can't open his mouth without lying. Sad!

I think you may not know what literally means.

 

[punkmother]

Trump literally can't open his mouth without lying. Sad!

thank the almighty you aren't running for anything. politifact would have a field day with this very obvious use of hyperbole.

 

[Fawlty]

You should actually read some of the politifact criticisms of Trump.
The man lies, but they often take an obviously off-the-cuff conversational remark and dissect it as though it were intended as something more than it is.

His comment about windmills killing 'thousands of eagles' was one where I think they kinda over-killed it.

Bullshit. It's a supporting statement for a policy position.

 

[Jack V Savage]

I have in the past mentioned specific instances of their usage of biases. It's not worth breaking this thread down into semantics over singular reviews .

It's not a semantic point. It's a logical error to say that "X is biased, therefore all claims by X are false." Further, it's a distraction anyway. I don't think it's a genuinely controversial claim that Trump tells bolder and more frequent lies than any candidate in living memory. The PF rating is just one way to attempt to quantify that.

It's not worth breaking this discussion into that singular instance and I will not be discussing it further. The point stands that they have a liberal bias, being organized primarily by a liberal newspaper.

That's not even close to true. They have a "balance bias," which ends up benefiting the right to a far greater degree. But it's also not relevant. If there's any particular problem with any of their claims, that's what should be pointed out.

Poltifact can exercise selection bias, because they don't like Trump they target him more (of course he's also giving them non stop material everyday) which leads to higher bad scores.

There is a kind of selection bias in that they only evaluate statements that are controversial or surprising. A normal politician, then, is going to have a far lower percentage of statements that are evaluated and as a result a lower score than they would if everything were evaluated. That actually makes Trump look better than he would if there were no selection bias.

Sextuple entendre in six words. Whodathunkit.

I don't know what this is supposed to mean, but I had understood that you were a Christian. Sorry if that was a mistake.

 

[lfd0311]

I stopped taking this thread seriously at "politifact".

 

[K1levelgrappler]

I think you may not know what literally means.

thank the almighty you aren't running for anything. politifact would have a field day with this very obvious use of hyperbole.

Trumpsters are pedantic. He only lies 2/3s of the time. Sad!