The War on Fact-Checkers: New GOP Strategy?

I still disagree on the welfare thing being a lie. Right now we have strict work requirements. States can now seek waivers. That’s loosening work requirements.

…from the Federal requirements IF their state programs produce equal or better results than those Federal requirements.

Since I’m sure you’re appreciative that someone actually came along and completed the incomplete thought you posted, you’re welcome.

It’s not a bad strategy to attack the fact checkers since they are so often wrong. However, the GOP has recently taken their big lie strategy to new extremes and they’re more vulnerable to a different kind of fact checker, people who aren’t dumber than rocks. Romney will still pick up a lot of votes no matter what. For those who hate Obama, there isn’t anything Romney or the GOP can say to dissuade them.

And better results is fungible enough that it’s still a loosening of the work requirements.

It’s really simple. Right now, there are work requirements. If a state seeks a waiver, there aren’t strict work requirements, just the requirement to have better “results”, which can be achieved if the state has more people on welfare or redefines what a job is.

Now it’s true that Romney’s assertions go much further than that, but the fact that work requirements are being loosened is unquestionable. They can’t be any stricter than they are right now. Which in the eyes of the states, is the problem. But Congress knew that going in, they imposed those requirements precisely so they couldn’t be wriggled out of.

Correct – but Romney’s ad assertions are the key. He didn’t say that the Obama administration loosened work requirements so that better results would ensue, did he?

But he should have, since that was precisely the intent of the loosening.

Instead he said that the administration loosened work requirements so that welfare recipients could just get a check.

How is that not a lie?

The last statement is maybe a lie. That is what many of us honestly believe this is going to be. The guy Obama put in charge of implement the waiver program is a known opponent of welfare reform.

If these were waivers from Clean Air standards, we’d call it what it is.

So it’s not a lie, it’s the truth as you like to pretend it’s going to be?

That’s why I prefer factcheck.org. They say what the truth is, and leave it up to the reader ‘how big’ a lie is. They also contact politicians’ offices to get their defense of the statement.

It seems like the strategy is go after the Washington Post ‘pinocchio nose’ thing and insinuate that fact-checking is all a liberal plot.

Supposedly Reagan proved that “Deficits don’t matter”. So, Romney/Ryan want to show that “Facts don’t matter”?

Stating what a policy is likely to lead to is standard practice in politics and completely fair. The waiver policy is not only likely to lead to the gutting of welfare reform, IMO, I believe that is the intent behind it.

Of course, maybe I’ll end up being wrong. We have to see what the actual waiver requests look like and if they will be granted. If I had to predict, I’d say no waivers will be granted, because I can’t think of any possible state program that would actually get superior performance to strict work requirements. The preliminary requests that the states made, as reported by the NY Times, were to loosen work requirements. Hopefully those requests will not be granted.

So, what jobs are these people supposed to do? We don’t have enough jobs as it is, so what “work requirements” are reasonable and humane when we have no jobs to offer?

Hey, wait, I see the beauty part. Remove union protection from state employees, drive them out of their jobs, wait for their unemployment to run out, and the force them to do their old jobs in exchange for their meager welfare bennies!

Profit!

It’s a form of Swift-Boating. Or “the liberal media.” In fact, I remember them calling FactCheck.org a “liberal” site soon after it opened up shop.

It’s the same old game from those people.

States, as should be noted, with Republican governors who requested the waivers. Just like Mitt requested waivers when he was governor of Massachusetts. Funny how that works.

Personally, I think Bill Clinton’s going to blow this lying talking point of the Republicans’ out of the water in his speech.

Governors look out for their own interests. The work requirements are a pain in the ass for them. Flexibility is what governors had before welfare reform. They could have work requirements of their own, or they chose not to. The waivers pretty much restore the pre-welfare reform status quo, with the lone exception that the feds have to approve the changes. Oh wait, they had to approve the changes before too, didn’t they?

So this actually is the pre-welfare reform law.

So the Republicans shouldn’t bash Obama for it.

Actually, the waivers from Clean Air standards are always to permit stricter standards (in California).

It would be a very similar lie to call the Clean Air Act waivers a removal of the requirement to lessen pollution.

Here’s an example of the kind of Clean Air Act waiver that this regulation was modeling:

Bricker, sometimes you’re alright.

Always. :smiley:

Typical fact checking nonsense: CNN is calling a statement that Obama created 4.5 million new jobs a lie because the net gain in non-farm jobs is much smaller. The statement may be false because the number 4.5 million is wrong, and may be misleading because the net employment is much lower, but if 4.5 million is the right number for jobs created in the past 4 years, the statement is factually true. Fact checkers should check facts, not try to clear up misimpressions. That’s what all those political operatives are for (although they create more misimpressions than they ever clear up).

I disagree, people don’t want facts, they want reports.

Now, the particular case you mentioned is wrong, but I think it’s ethically prudent for a fact checker to say “Yes, the statement that 4.5 million jobs were created is accurate but…”

To use a ridiculous example, the statement “Obama has personally killed something in rage” is probably true, but it sounds scarier than it is when the true story is probably “Obama angrily killed a fly once because it was really obnoxious.” I think it does a disservice to just stop at “whelp, yeah, the first statement is true!”