# Politifact has issued their ratings today. **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [October 27, 2016, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/politifact-has-issued-their-ratings-today/769875 "2016-10-27T19:42:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![scabpicker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scabpicker/32/8268_2.png) [@scabpicker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scabpicker)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2016, 7:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/politifact-has-issued-their-ratings-today/769875/21 "2016-10-28T07:54:33Z")
> [@Askthepizzaguy](#): > > Question 1: Is it possible for a fact checking group to look into any 2 politicians, analyze their statements, and conclude one lies more than the other, without supporters of that politician assuming that they are simply biased? Hmm, I am not certain. However, when my father and I argued over the sanity of the second gulf war, I said something to the effect of: “Look, if the two most likely outcomes of the war look suspiciously like the Vietnam war or Lebanon’s civil war, you simply don’t go to war unless your existence is at stake. You’d be stupid to do otherwise.”\* I’m not sure if that ended his support for W, but he didn’t praise him in my presence again. > [@Askthepizzaguy](#): > > Question 2: If someone begins with the premise that their chosen candidate is the best choice, are there literally \*\*any \*\*facts that could deter them? Well, Hillary might get caught consuming live children. It’s a crazy world, and I wouldn’t rule anything out of the possible. That’d make me vote for Donald. If she had the decency to humanely kill the toddlers and was skilled enough prepare them in the most delicious manner possible? That’d be a tough call. You’d have to be pretty inhumane to others before I’d think you’d rank lower in presidential qualifications than a pathological liar who can’t even own up to when he’s already been contradicted by publicly available facts. That’s not even the behavior of a strong dictator - that’s the behavior of the dictator’s toadie. \*And, we got an unholy mix of the two, which still hasn’t stopped. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Ace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/6bbea6/32.png) [@Johnny\_Ace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Ace)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2016, 10:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/politifact-has-issued-their-ratings-today/769875/22 "2016-10-28T10:04:53Z")
Seriously, folks, how can you listen to Trump and NOT come to the conclusion that he’s the biggest liar in history? The bullshit he spews is obvious to anyone with a 6th-grade education who doesn’t delude themselves by either voting for him because Hillary or because it will bring closer the birth of a Fourth Reich. Try a little fact-checking yourself if you don’t believe me. And try to do something most conservatives appear incapable of: keep an open mind. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2016, 11:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/politifact-has-issued-their-ratings-today/769875/23 "2016-10-28T11:48:45Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Well, **astorian**? Good enough for you? I stated in my first post that Trump is a fraud and a horrible person, but you elected to ignore that and pretend I’m in his corner. Yet another example of the honesty and reading skills that make you a brilliant moderator. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2016, 11:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/politifact-has-issued-their-ratings-today/769875/24 "2016-10-28T11:54:12Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > I stated in my first post that Trump is a fraud and a horrible person, but you elected to ignore that and pretend I’m in his corner. > > Yet another example of the honesty and reading skills that make you a brilliant moderator. 1. I was asking about the mentioned site’s qualification as a fact-finding site, not your opinion about Trump, and 2. I stepped down as a mod _years_ ago. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2016, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/politifact-has-issued-their-ratings-today/769875/25 "2016-10-28T12:32:35Z")
Clinton is a liar. She’s absolutely willing to lie, and has repeatedly over the course of her career. She’s one of the more dishonest candidates in the history of the country. Now… you know those scalable videos of the size of objects in the universe? I’ve just described, let’s say, Alpha Centauri B, a star slightly smaller than our sun but dwarfing all the planets of our solar system. That’s the size of Clinton’s dishonesty. She’s a liar of Alpha Centauri B dimension. Betelgeuse is one of the largest stars we know. Its diameter is roughly that of the size of Jupiter’s orbit around the sun. It dwarfs Alpha Centauri B. And that’s the Trump scale of lies. Clinton is at the dishonest end of the politician-lying spectrum. Trump is . . . well. . . HUUUGE. A different ball game. Clinton’s lies are plausible, calculated, and generally consistent with how politics are done in this country, although again on the far side of the slope. Trump’s lies are blatant, immediate, self-contradictory, and delivered with unselfconscious carelessness. Trump is the Betelgeuse of lying. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2016, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/politifact-has-issued-their-ratings-today/769875/26 "2016-10-28T13:03:36Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Clinton is a liar. She’s absolutely willing to lie, and has repeatedly over the course of her career. She’s one of the more dishonest candidates in the history of the country. Really? I mean, she’s nothing great, but I wonder if you’ve been spoiled by Obama. I’d put her honesty up against her husband, or Reagan, or Nixon, or W, or our own dear Jesse Helms. Maybe Carter’s more honest than her. Since I became aware of politics, I’ve realized that politicians didn’t get where they were through scrupulous honesty. I’m really unconvinced that Clinton is especially worse than others. ---
**Author:** ![steronz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steronz/32/11765_2.png) [@steronz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/steronz)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2016, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/politifact-has-issued-their-ratings-today/769875/27 "2016-10-28T13:09:26Z")
Hey look, there’s [a blog entirely dedicated to pointing out Politifact’s supposed bias](http://www.politifactbias.com/). And I’ve seen examples posted that do show clear examples of… well let’s call them inconsistencies. Usually it’s 2 different fact checkers making a different call on some ancillary statement from 2 different politicians, often times years apart, or giving different weights to the same lie. And maybe they are biased; after years of calling bullshit on Republican politicians I imagine it’d be hard to give them the benefit of the doubt. But there are, of course, 2 big problems with this notion. 1. I don’t know how many ratings Politifact gives on a daily bases, but finding a few dozen or a few hundred questionable ones over a 9 year history doesn’t necessarily mean much, and 2. They don’t issue ratings in a vacuum, so you can read their rationale yourself and decide if that particular rating is justified. This is, of course, harder when they’re aggregating all ratings over a politician’s career, but still. What’s happened, like with Snopes, is that there’s a large group of people who’ve just accepted that “Oh, fact-checkers are biased” and use that as an excuse not to read articles or think critically. ---
**Author:** ![Snarky\_Kong](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a183cd/32.png) [@Snarky\_Kong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snarky_Kong)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2016, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/politifact-has-issued-their-ratings-today/769875/28 "2016-10-28T13:32:14Z")
Trump lies about not saying things there are videos of him saying. Not things that happened years ago, but days or hours ago. How anyone could think they’re in the same ballpark is crazy to me. ---
**Author:** ![Skammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skammer/32/143_2.png) [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2016, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/politifact-has-issued-their-ratings-today/769875/29 "2016-10-28T13:46:56Z")
> [@snowthx](#): > > I am sincerely interested in knowing of a fact-checking site that does not come to the same conclusion that Trump lies far more than Clinton. Well… sigh. Here’s what passes for unbiased “fact checking.” If you can get to the end without yelling at your screen you’re better than I am. [Proudcons.com: Hillary’s 6 Huge Lies from the Debate](http://www.proudcons.com/hillary-insisted-america-fact-check-her-so-we-did-heres-6-huge-lies-from-the-debate/) ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2016, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/politifact-has-issued-their-ratings-today/769875/30 "2016-10-28T13:55:02Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Clinton is a liar. She’s absolutely willing to lie, and has repeatedly over the course of her career. She’s one of the more dishonest candidates in the history of the country. Based on…? ---
**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2016, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/politifact-has-issued-their-ratings-today/769875/31 "2016-10-28T13:56:35Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > That said, I will grant that it’s possible for an outfit like Politifact to manifest bias without actually coming to any wrong conclusions. All they’d have to do would be to be selective about what statements they fact-check. In fact their _reports_ on issues are not bad at all—I don’t recall seeing anything suspicious. It is how they decide to classify their conclusions as “Pants on Fire” or “Mostly True” that is what turns me off to them. A favorite example I saw is this comparison, where Bernie Sanders’ statement is mostly true, while Trump’s is mostly false, but it is pretty difficult to distinguish them in terms of the content of the message. Sanders: [PolitiFact | Bernie Sanders says 'real unemployment' rate for African American youth is 51 percent](http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/jul/13/bernie-s/bernie-sanders-says-real-unemployment-rate-african/) Trump: [PolitiFact | Trump misleadingly puts black youth unemployment rate at 59 percent](http://www.politifact.com/virginia/statements/2016/jun/20/donald-trump/trump-misleadingly-puts-black-youth-unemployment-r/) If they simply got rid of that I’d probably love them. I seriously have never read an article that seemed to miss important aspects. They seem to hire good people. On the other hand, since they have this childish “Pants on Fire” outlet for their ire, perhaps this allows their articles to be more professional. Other media outlets have to work their virtue signaling and peer pressure in more traditional ways. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2016, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/politifact-has-issued-their-ratings-today/769875/32 "2016-10-28T15:31:57Z")
> [@erislover](#): > > In fact their _reports_ on issues are not bad at all—I don’t recall seeing anything suspicious. It is how they decide to classify their conclusions as “Pants on Fire” or “Mostly True” that is what turns me off to them. A favorite example I saw is this comparison, where Bernie Sanders’ statement is mostly true, while Trump’s is mostly false, but it is pretty difficult to distinguish them in terms of the content of the message. > Sanders: [PolitiFact | Bernie Sanders says 'real unemployment' rate for African American youth is 51 percent](http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/jul/13/bernie-s/bernie-sanders-says-real-unemployment-rate-african/) > Trump: [PolitiFact | Trump misleadingly puts black youth unemployment rate at 59 percent](http://www.politifact.com/virginia/statements/2016/jun/20/donald-trump/trump-misleadingly-puts-black-youth-unemployment-r/) I’m not sure what you mean by “in terms of the content of the message,” but I see two very important differences here. First, Sanders’s campaign cited a specific study to back up his claim. Trump refused to respond, leaving everyone (factcheckers, voters, etc.) to try to figure out what he’s talking about. Second, and more importantly, Sanders was excluding people in school from his claim. Trump? Nobody knows for sure, but the best guess is that he’s calling full-time students “unemployed” in order to make his claim. If that’s what Trump is doing, it makes sense to call his claim mostly false. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2016, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/politifact-has-issued-their-ratings-today/769875/33 "2016-10-28T15:43:01Z")
> [@Skammer](#): > > Well… sigh. Here’s what passes for unbiased “fact checking.” If you can get to the end without yelling at your screen you’re better than I am. > > [Proudcons.com: Hillary’s 6 Huge Lies from the Debate](http://www.proudcons.com/hillary-insisted-america-fact-check-her-so-we-did-heres-6-huge-lies-from-the-debate/) Couldn’t make it. In fact, I need to replace not only my monitor but also the window. > [@Bricker](#): > > Clinton is a liar. She’s absolutely willing to lie, and has repeatedly over the course of her career. She’s one of the more dishonest candidates in the history of the country. OK, that’s a pretty clear claim so it should be relatively easy to show how her lies and I’m especially interested in cites for her early career. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2016, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/politifact-has-issued-their-ratings-today/769875/34 "2016-10-28T16:48:56Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > Both are significantly deceitful. It’s just that Clinton falls into the normal range of unscrupulousness for a politician and is canny enough to qualify her statements in such a way to avoid blatant fraud, while Donald Trump seems constitutionally incapable of telling the truth even regarding statements he is on record of having said and factual inconsistencies that have been clearly debunked. Sure, Clinton is a career politician. She colors the truth, fudges, exaggerates. They all do. But Clinton is far more truthful that Trump, and better, iirc that\* every other GOP candidate.\* Bernie did beat her in truthfulness, I admit. However even he had his Pinocchio moments. But he is the ONLY one. ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2016, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/politifact-has-issued-their-ratings-today/769875/35 "2016-10-28T17:57:39Z")
In defense of Trump, his cluelessness is such that he probably doesn’t realize that most of what he says is nonsense. You can’t say the same about Clinton. Not that Trump is remotely honest. But I don’t think you can just stack up his accuracy stats against Clinton’s and use them as a proxy for their relative honesty (even leaving aside the bias of fact-checkers which has enormous impact). ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2016, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/politifact-has-issued-their-ratings-today/769875/36 "2016-10-28T18:12:29Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > In defense of Trump, his cluelessness is such that he probably doesn’t realize that most of what he says is nonsense. You can’t say the same about Clinton. > > Not that Trump is remotely honest. But I don’t think you can just stack up his accuracy stats against Clinton’s and use them as a proxy for their relative honesty (even leaving aside the bias of fact-checkers which has enormous impact). So when he tweeted after the last debate that he was ahead in all the polls he was just being _inaccurate?_ :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2016, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/politifact-has-issued-their-ratings-today/769875/37 "2016-10-28T18:16:21Z")
Did you read what I wrote? Do you _ever_ read anything anyone writes? ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2016, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/politifact-has-issued-their-ratings-today/769875/38 "2016-10-28T19:01:18Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Clinton is a liar. She’s absolutely willing to lie, and has repeatedly over the course of her career. She’s one of the more dishonest candidates in the history of the country. > > Now… you know those scalable videos of the size of objects in the universe? > > I’ve just described, let’s say, Alpha Centauri B, a star slightly smaller than our sun but dwarfing all the planets of our solar system. That’s the size of Clinton’s dishonesty. She’s a liar of Alpha Centauri B dimension. > > Betelgeuse is one of the largest stars we know. Its diameter is roughly that of the size of Jupiter’s orbit around the sun. It dwarfs Alpha Centauri B. > > And that’s the Trump scale of lies. Clinton is at the dishonest end of the politician-lying spectrum. Trump is . . . well. . . HUUUGE. A different ball game. Clinton’s lies are plausible, calculated, and generally consistent with how politics are done in this country, although again on the far side of the slope. Trump’s lies are blatant, immediate, self-contradictory, and delivered with unselfconscious carelessness. Trump is the Betelgeuse of lying. I admit I laughed, counselor. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2016, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/politifact-has-issued-their-ratings-today/769875/39 "2016-10-28T19:08:26Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Clinton is a liar. She’s absolutely willing to lie, and has repeatedly over the course of her career. She’s one of the more dishonest candidates in the history of the country. > > Now… you know those scalable videos of the size of objects in the universe? > > I’ve just described, let’s say, Alpha Centauri B, a star slightly smaller than our sun but dwarfing all the planets of our solar system. That’s the size of Clinton’s dishonesty. She’s a liar of Alpha Centauri B dimension. > > Betelgeuse is one of the largest stars we know. Its diameter is roughly that of the size of Jupiter’s orbit around the sun. It dwarfs Alpha Centauri B. > > And that’s the Trump scale of lies. Clinton is at the dishonest end of the politician-lying spectrum. Trump is . . . well. . . HUUUGE. A different ball game. Clinton’s lies are plausible, calculated, and generally consistent with how politics are done in this country, although again on the far side of the slope. Trump’s lies are blatant, immediate, self-contradictory, and delivered with unselfconscious carelessness. Trump is the Betelgeuse of lying. > **[P.J. O’Rourke: I’m Endorsing Hillary Clinton, the Devil We Know](https://www.thedailybeast.com/pj-orourke-im-endorsing-hillary-clinton-the-devil-we-know)** > > Sure, Hillary is the crone in crony capitalism. But Donald… > **[Conservative Author P.J. O'Rourke Reluctantly Backs Clinton](https://www.npr.org/2016/05/09/477339063/conservative-author-pj-orourke-reluctantly-backs-clinton)** > > O'Rourke will be voting for Hillary Clinton, but he's not happy about it. "She's wrong about absolutely everything, but she's wrong within normal parameters," he said. _“I am endorsing Hillary, and all her lies and all her empty promises,” O’Rourke continued. “It’s the second-worst thing that can happen to this country, but she’s way behind in second place. She’s wrong about absolutely everything, but she’s wrong within normal parameters.”_ ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2016, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/politifact-has-issued-their-ratings-today/769875/40 "2016-10-28T19:28:23Z")
> [@TokyoBayer](#): > > Couldn’t make it. In fact, I need to replace not only my monitor but also the window. > > OK, that’s a pretty clear claim so it should be relatively easy to show how her lies and I’m especially interested in cites for her early career. I decline the invitation to do so in this thread. I have no interest in even the appearing of propping Trump up by delineating Clinton dishonesty in detail. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/politifact-has-issued-their-ratings-today/769875.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/politifact-has-issued-their-ratings-today/769875.md?page=3)