October 2, 2011
Do They Even Read What They Write?
This one was just too easy. First Politifact accuses Terry Gorman of RIILE of issuing a "Mostly False" statement, and then they actually explain how their own ruling is wrong!
At issue is a statement that Gorman made about the recent RI Board of Governors offering in-state tuition to illegal aliens. According to the article, Gorman said
"[Federal] law says that you can't give in-state tuition to an illegal alien … unless you first offer it to any other student regardless of their state of residence."
And then they go over the law and explain how he's wrong because there is an out in the federal law:
The section goes on to say that states can grant undocumented immigrants public benefits that they otherwise would not qualify for if the state enacts a law to do so.Well, I guess they gotcha there, Terry, eh?
Oh wait, in Politifact's own article, again they wrote:
...if the state enacts a law...Did I miss something here? High school civics class was a while back, but I do know that it is only the General Assembly that can "enact a law". They didn't do that. The Board of Governors for Higher Education enacted a policy. The federal law doesn't say that "if the state enacts a law to do so or the Board of Governors of Higher Education enacts a policy".
So is Politifact trying to slide one pass us that it is "close enough"? Sorry, not good enough for me. Why? Try this. Go and Google "Politifact words have meaning" and see what you get for results. We have many instances where Politifact themselves have used this phrase when it works for them. Words do have meaning, as do a lack of words.
So based on this, Terry Gorman would seem to be exactly correct. According to the federal law, Rhode Island must offer in-state tuition to all US citizens because it didn't enact a law giving this benefit to illegal aliens. Until that time, it would seem that RI is in violation of federal law.
Sorry Politifact, but this time you get a "Pants on Fire".
The agenda driven scumbags at Politifiction wouldn't give Terry a "True"rating if he said there was an earthquake and the building was falling down on them.F**k them.
Posted by: joe bernstein at October 2, 2011 11:43 PMRight on Patrick. I wonder if there will be a sequel that actually has any proof whatsoever that Mr. Gorman's statement is false. The majority of the article seemed to prove his statement correct. I noticed in the last paragraph that Politifact gave themselves an out by claiming that if a court ruled differently they'd consider changing their ruling. If they had any inkling that a court case was possible wouldn't RESPONSIBLE reporting be to wait for a ruling. I agree with your rating of " Pants on Fire" for the article. By Politifact's own grading It's " using false information to malicously harm someone ".
Posted by: leprechaun at October 3, 2011 8:05 AMIt's very telling that the only way to comment on a Politifiction story is to use Facebook. Did they allow it at any point in time? They allow it on every other opinion piece and despite their moniker, it is an opinion piece. Maybe they were catching to much flack from readers but I can't imagine it being any worse than a Harrop piece.
Posted by: Max Diesel at October 3, 2011 12:13 PMPolitifact is the most sophomoric crap I've ever seen masquerading as a fact checking piece.
The topics they choose are so meaningless and senseless, that each time I read it I say to myself..."who cares?"..."big deal"
An utter waste of time and money on the ProJo's part.
It must be one of those things where they can't fire the writers due to stupid union rules so they have to do something with them. You'd be hard pressed to argue they are doing anything of value.