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Viral Spiral
FactCheck Mailbag
FactCheck Mailbag, Week of March 19-25.
See letters from previous weeks“ Criticizing the Democrats for citing the only available study on gun purchases for its age seems wide of the target. ” -
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2012 Players Guide
McCain and Computers
Today’s Ask FactCheck on our main site, FactCheck.org, addresses a question we’ve been asked repeatedly. (Follow the link for our full response.): Is McCain unable to use a computer because of war injuries? He can type. But using a keyboard for long periods is uncomfortable for him. He says he’s been …
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Posted in The FactCheck Wire
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More on Palin’s False Energy Claim
There’s more on Sarah Palin’s claim, made in her ABC News interview, that Alaska produces 20 percent of the nation’s energy supply. As we noted in our original article, official statistics from the federal government show that Alaska produces only 3.5 percent of the total energy produced in the U.S., …
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Muting the Mommy Melodrama
The Internet is abuzz with the rumor that Palin’s youngest child, Trig, is not actually her son but her grandson, born to her teenage daughter Bristol and adopted by Palin to cover up the scandal. Aside from a DNA test, it’s unlikely we’ll convince the hard-core conspiracy theorists and skeptics …
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Energetically Wrong. Still.
Last Friday, we wrote an article debunking Sarah Palin’s claim that Alaska “produces nearly 20 percent of the U.S. domestic supply of energy.” That’s false. The state’s share of U.S. energy production is actually 3.5 percent. Palin has now changed her tune: Palin (Sept. 15, Golden, Colorado): My job has …
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Did McCain Invent the BlackBerry?
John McCain is having his very own Al Gore moment. McCain’s top economic adviser, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, waved his BlackBerry to a room full of reporters, explaining that "you’re looking at the miracle that John McCain helped create.” Gore was widely mocked for his claim that “I took the initiative in …
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More on the Phantom 62 Percent
In our recent article “Sliming Palin,” we addressed the pervasive rumor that Gov. Palin slashed funding for special needs education. She didn’t. Instead, she increased funding. Here’s more detail on how an increase got mistaken for a 62 percent decrease. The evidence that’s been cited to support the false decrease …
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Under FactCheck’s Hood: A Note on Methodology for our Palin – 20% Energy Piece
Last Friday, we pointed out that a Palin-McCain talking point stating that Alaska “produces nearly 20 percent of the U.S. domestic supply of energy” was false. The actual figure was 3.5 percent. Within the story, we allowed (several times) that Palin and McCain may have misspoken and meant to say …
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Posted in The FactCheck Wire
Tagged Alaska, calculations, energy, FactCheck.org, John McCain, Sarah Palin
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Fact-Checking Is Useless
Well, okay, they’re not actually saying that it’s useless. Just potentially counter-productive. An article last September pointed to cognitive science research showing that debunking myths can have the effect of reinforcing the very myths you’re trying to refute. That’s because the human brain is hardwired with a lot of shortcuts. …
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Distorting Our Findings, Part II
On Sept. 10, we objected when the McCain-Palin campaign released an ad implying that we’d criticized Obama for “completely false” and “misleading” claims about Sarah Palin. We did use those words, but we used them to criticize anonymous Internet rumormongers, not Obama. Now that same claim from the McCain-Palin camp …
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Posted in The FactCheck Wire
Tagged FactCheck.org, Internet rumors, John McCain, Sarah Palin, TV ads
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