By novenator, December 22 at 1:00 pm

“Politifact is still a good organization, and does a lot of good work,...”

novenator, you couldn’t be more wrong.  This site sells itself as “the place of truth”.

It’s not as if they didn’t know the truth here, they “spun” the truth to keep from antagonizing the liar.

When you “spin” the truth, you don’t tell the truth, you lie.

Now how could Politifact still be a good organization to discern and present the truth when they have knowingly lied?

Knowingly telling the first lie ends an organizations credibility.

Will they preface their next lie by stating “the following fact is a lie”?  You, me, none of us, will know whether their next utterance will be a lie, or a “spun” truth ( a lie by another name)or the actual truth.

For goodness sake novenator this organization promised you and the world that they would report the fact, not something else.

Call them toast, they’re done.

Politifact is still a good organization, and does a lot of good work, but they just need to find their balls and accept that when the right wing lies *far* more often than the left, they are going to have to expose this truth.  As some of my scientist friends often say, “reality has a liberal bias”, and while the rabid right will bitch and moan and whine about “unfair” treatment, it is ultimately their deceptive practices that are at fault, not fact-checking organizations (or dictionaries, encyclopedias, scientists, educators, etc.) who call them on their bullshit.

The “Tampa Bay/St. Petersburg Times” which created Politifact is the perfect example of what’s wrong with the Main Stream Media. There is lengthy debate on Wikipedia regarding whether the “Tampa Bay/St. Petersburg Times” is now conservative or liberal; replete with conflicting information regarding the “Tampa Bay/St. Petersburg Time’s” endorsements of political candidates.

Politifact states that the Ryan Plan would privatize Medicare and add an annual $6,000.00 in out of pocket expenses for future Medicare recipients. Technically the Ryan Plan does not “End” Medicare or “Kill” Medicare, but the Ryan Plan would reduce funding for Medicare and would amount to be being a nail in the lid of Medicare’s coffin. Clearly Republicans want to end Medicare as we know it. Right-wingers which now make up a preponderance of Republicans in Congress have been opposed to Medicare since day one. The Social Security Act of 1965 (Medicare and Medicaid) passed in the Senate with 57 Democratic Yea Votes and 17 Republican Yea votes.  Republicans today never miss an opportunity to criticize Medicare and Medicaid, using demagoguery and scare tactics. Any economic difficulties associated with Medicare and Medicaid would be easily fixed by increasing the tax burden slightly for the obscenely rich, which is what Democrats want and Republicans are adamantly opposed to.

Does claiming that Republicans want to “End” or “Kill” Medicare and Medicaid qualify as being the biggest lie of 2011? I think not. To me the biggest lie stated perennially is that there are no differences between Democrats and Republicans.

By kerryrose, December 20 at 5:29 pm


“What difference does it make?  Obama has no problem axing Medicare and had actually requested that it be on the table.

Both parties want it gone and just play good cop bad cop.  There is no ‘savior’ party as Obama’s presidency had made clear.”

Calling Kerry Rose a moron might seem inappropriate, however:

Definition of MORON. 1. Usually offensive: a person affected with mild mental retardation . 2: a very stupid person.

Putting Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid “on the table” means subjecting Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid to negotiation regarding certain cost saving measures and does not suggest killing, ending, privatizing, or cutting benefits for recipients. Obama has vowed to veto any legislation that would privatize or cut benefits.

Personally I don’t have a lot of respect for cops, but I’ll take the good cops over the bad cops every time.

The biggest lie, no matter from where it comes, is that Medicare and Social Security are insolvent.

I took a look at the revenue stream from Social Security and Medicare ( From the Government Record) and discovered that for years the Government has bee taking in more money for these programs than it was paying out.  Around $270 Billion per year on average.

So the question then becomes - How could it be insolvent? How much does that over collection amount to over the years?  My ciphering says around $6.5 Trillion dollars.

That’s 6,500 Billion Dollars.  At $270 billion per year 6,500/270= 24 years.  In other words if the Government paid back that excess taken from you and me, for the next 24 years no adjustment would have to be made.  And don’t forget that during these 24 years the Government would still be taking in $270 Billion more than the outgo if things remained the same.  The only adjustment needed would be to account for inflation.  Of course things will change, but to what extent?

How much do we need to adjust to push these programs into perpetuity?  There are about 77,500,000 families currently in the United States, so if I divide this number into $270 billion, I find that every American on average is already paying $3,484 more per year than needed.  If these programs were adjusted annually to account for the changes, these programs would never become insolvent.

So why the push to Privatize?

It is a five letter word - Greed.

See, the Government Administrative cost of the programs is about 5%.  The average Insurance Company Administrative cost is about 19%.

Get the picture?

Krugman may be right, but when the pot (economists) call the kettle black, there is no moral force behind it.  Economists are singularly and collectively blind the the reality that their theoretical beliefs created this mega disaster.  Not one of them is pointing his finger at himself.  Hubris. The image I have of Krugman is a guy prancing around preaching with no pants on. No thinking person is going to take Krugman or his ilk seriously.  They are mere dead theories walking.

And yet Politifact.com got it dead wrong. The Republicans did plan on gutting or changing Medicare. (They were.) So what to do? they are wrong yet they sided with the Republicans, does that make them just crypto Republicans or too stupid to see it. Neither choice bodes well for the organization.

Too much suspense, who will pander to the Republicans more, PolitiFact, the MSM, or the Democrats?

What difference does it make?  Obama has no problem axing Medicare and had actually requested that it be on the table.

Both parties want it gone and just play good cop bad cop.  There is no ‘savior’ party as Obama’s presidency had made clear.

[Krugman Deems PolitiFact ‘Useless and Irrelevant’]  really?
As I read this article Politifact is technically correct.
If I had been on the Dem executive I’d have been a lot more careful about the imagery, political weasel words and the underlying definitions…... 
This is a clear example of political partisan group think.
DCC very poor judgement, face it they and the Ad agency BLEW IT big time.
As for the lie of the year hmmm. although 8-9 other political exaggerations (lies) do tend to support the claim of Politifact.