Wednesday, January 31, 2018

The fact checkers got a workout last night



PolitiFact’s website went down briefly during President Trump’s first State of the Union address.

The fact-checking website tweeted at 9:49 p.m., about halfway through Trump’s speech, that the website had crashed.

“Welp ... our website just crashed,” PolitiFact tweeted. “Thanks for reading ?!!? We'll keep things up here on Twitter while we see what happened.”

  
Trump’s statements cycled through every Truth-O-Meter rating, except for Pants on Fire. We tallied two False statements, three Mostly False, one Half True, three Mostly True, and one True.

Here’s our rundown of the president’s address, along with notes on his claims' overall accuracy and additional context. (This story will be updated as we do more fact-checking.)

  Politifact
Check Politifact's fact checks here, which include tax cuts, wages, bonuses, regulations, immigration, unemployment, terrorists, coal and confidence.


The Guardian's checkers were also on it, beginning with jobs:



They continue with

  • African American and Hispanic American unemployment
  • Tax cuts
  • The stock market
  • Bonuses
  • Coal, energy and cars
  • Regulations
  • Trade
  • The Empire State Building
  • Isis
  • Immigration and crime
  • Visas
  • Drugs
Some of their corrections are petty, others important.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

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