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How does PolitiFact Georgia’s Truth-O-Meter work?
Our goal is to help you find the truth in American politics. Reporters from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution fact-check statements by local, state and national political leaders, including lobbyists and interest groups. We then rate them on the AJC Truth-O-Meter.
To fact-check a claim, reporters first contact the speaker to verify the statement. Next, the research begins. Reporters consult a variety of sources, including industry and academic experts. This research can take hours or a few days or even longer, depending on the claim. Reporters then compile the research into story form and include a recommended Truth-O-Meter ruling.
The fact check then moves on to a panel of veteran editors who debate the statement and the reporter’s recommended Truth-O-Meter ruling. The panel votes on a final ruling; majority prevails.
PolitiFact and PolitiFact Georgia looked last week at President Barack Obama’s promise on Afghanistan, Elton John’s views on the most recent HIV/AIDS outbreak and the limits placed on Georgia brewpubs.
And we fact-checked Hillary Clinton’s comments on guns.
Abbreviated versions of our fact checks are below.
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Full versions can be found at www.politifact.com/georgia/.
The Obamameter update: “President Obama responsibly ended the war in Iraq and will end the war in Afghanistan in 2014.”
Sources: BarackObama.com
American troops will continue to remain in Afghanistan through the end of Barack Obama’s presidency, prolonging a 14-year conflict that Obama pledged to wrap up by 2014.
Obama announced on Oct. 15 a new White House plan that lays out a “modest but meaningful extension of our presence” in the country, the second time the administration has stalled withdrawal this year alone.
The decision to delay withdrawal resulted from months of consultation with national security advisers, Afghan leadership and international partners. It also comes on the heels of the Taliban’s first takeover of any Afghan city, at a time when “the security situation is still very fragile, and in some places there is risk of deterioration,” Obama said.
Obama’s most recent Afghanistan plan has evolved in these past two years and is a complete reversal from what he pledged during his 2012 reelection campaign. We’re not weighing in on whether it would be wrong or right for him to keep his word, just noting that he hasn’t.
We rate this a Promise Broken.
Elton John on Tuesday, October 13th, 2015 on CNN
HIV/AIDS is “dramatically on the rise in the U.S. South.”
Celebrity just keeps elbowing its way into the 2016 presidential race.
In advance of the first Democratic debate, CNN asked celebrities, including part-time Atlanta resident Elton John what one question they’d like to ask the candidates.
John’s response: “In spite of great progress, HIV/AIDS is actually dramatically on the rise in the U.S. South. What would you do as president to help stop this epidemic, particularly among minority communities?”
Data from 2012-13 show new HIV diagnoses on the rise in most of the country, with the largest — a 7.5 percent increase — in the South. But you can quibble whether there is enough of a trend line to term this a dramatic jump in cases.
We rated John’s statement Mostly True
Hillary Clinton on Wednesday, October 7th, 2015 in a town hall-style campaign event in Iowa
The gun industry is “the only business in America that is wholly protected from any kind of liability.”
At the first Democratic debate of the 2016 presidential race, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton criticized opponent Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., for supporting a 2005 law that shields the gun industry from certain lawsuits.
Clinton voted against this law when she was a senator.
“Probably one of the most egregious, wrong, pieces of legislation that ever passed the Congress when it comes to this issue is to protect gun sellers and gun makers from liability,” she said in Iowa Oct. 7. “They are the only business in America that is wholly protected from any kind of liability.”
Is Clinton right? Short answer: No.
Clinton is talking about a law that says the gun industry is protected from liability in certain instances, but the law also specifies several situations in which the gun industry is susceptible to lawsuits.
Further, Congress has passed a number of laws that protect a variety of business sectors from lawsuits in certain situations, so the situation is not unique to the gun industry.
We rate Clinton’s claim False.
Slice & Pint menu, September 24th, 2015
Brewpubs can’t sell growlers of their beer to customers.
At least one Georgia beer maker is frothing mad about the new legislation regulating local suds’ sales and is using his menu to make the point.
At the Slice & Pint brewpub in Emory Village, brewmaster Crawford Moran has launched a “government rant” series of beers designed to highlight his gripes.
The menu’s fall offering: “Why does the state legislature not want to create jobs by allowing us to do growlers of this IPA?”
Alas, growler shops dot the landscape from Decatur to Alpharetta. So your PolitiFact Georgia scribe decided to research whether the state’s brewpubs can’t sell their products to go.
Craft brewers have sought for at least a decade to change the state law that keeps them from making money from those who want to quaff their wares. In this year’s legislative session, Senate Bill 63 originally would have given breweries and brewpubs their wish.
But the final version instead gave craft brewers the ability only to sell tours and give away their product – a backdoor way to sell limited amounts of beer to go - and stripped out brewpubs’ ability to do the same.
Controversy is brewing over that change, now that the state Department of Revenue has issued a bulletin forbidding brewers from charging different prices for the tours based on the value of the beers offered.
And brewpubs? The law makes it clear they must sell only on site or to wholesale dealers.
We rate the claim True.
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