On April 7, Facebook pulled the plug on the censorship of “independent fact checkers,” replacing it with a “Community Notes” approach, like Elon Musk’s X uses. No one was more upset than the censorious left-wing “fact” police.
Angie Holan, the leader of the Poynter Institute’s International Fact-Checking Network, marked “International Fact-Checking Day” by proclaiming they are needed now more than ever. “Fact-checking holds the line on reality for history’s sake. It builds evidence-based records that can withstand political pressures.”
Fact check? False. Poynter’s PolitiFact routinely demonstrates that its so-called “line on reality” is a party line. It doesn’t “withstand political pressures.” It’s a political pressure group seeking to damage Republicans.
The latest glowing exhibit is Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.). In his “historic” 25-hour speech on the Senate floor in protest of President Trump, PolitiFact plucked out one innocuous claim and ruled it “True.” Booker said, “The consumer confidence in this country has gone way down.” It’s true. The Conference Board measurement has dropped since Trump won.
But what about the other 25 hours of statements? Were they entirely factual? Don’t count on PolitiFact for a ruling, because they are in the tank for Cory Booker. He’s received five “True” ratings in a row dating back to 2019.
In 2020, they gave him a “True” for stating the Senate is “dominated by millionaires” and that he is “not one of them.” In 2019, he was ruled “True” for claiming “In 2017, we had more marijuana possession arrests in our country than all other violent crimes combined.”
Isn’t it obvious that Booker bumbled – that marijuana possession is not a violent crime?
Overall, PolitiFact has granted Booker 22 ratings as “True” or “Mostly True” (11 of each), and just eight that were “Mostly False” or “False.” There are zero “Pants on Fire” ratings. So he’s in the “green zone” 64.7 percent of the time, and he’s Code Red just 23.5 percent of the time.
Compare this to the page of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas). He’s received 160 “fact checks” over the years, and only 31 of them are “True” or “Mostly True” (19.4 percent). He’s been flagged on the “False” side 107 times (66.9 percent). That includes eleven “Pants On Fire” ratings. Notice these percentages are dramatically opposed to Booker’s, which demonstrates the political tilt of PolitiFact.
It’s true for the Democrats as a whole. Three Democrat senators have one solitary “Pants On Fire” demerit in the PolitiFact archives: Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, Minority Whip Dick Durbin, and Kirsten Gillibrand. No Senate Democrat has more than one. Every other Democrat senator has zero. That’s right: Bernie Sanders has none. Elizabeth Warren has none. (Former senator Kamala Harris has none.)
In fact, 18 Democrat senators (if you include Angus King of Maine, who caucuses with the Democrats) have absolutely no ratings anywhere on the False side of the meter. Seven have zero ratings whatsoever: Mazie Hirono of Hawaii, Peter Welch of Vermont, as well as Martin Heinrich and Ben Ray Lujan of New Mexico, and then rookies Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland, Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware, and Andy Kim of New Jersey.
Add up all the Trues and Falses (excluding “Half True” ratings), and the Senate Democrat caucus has a “Truth-O-Meter” ratio of 330 to 165 (66.8 percent in the True lane). As a category, they’re the opposite of Ted Cruz.
So when Holan claimed only “politicians who want to create their own realities are fighting hard against fact-checking,” she was making the classic Stephen Colbert argument: Reality has a liberal bias. This is why most Americans don’t trust biased “fact checkers.”
