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Truth-O-Meter rulings
The goal of the Truth-O-Meter is to reflect the relative accuracy of a statement.
The meter has six ratings, in decreasing level of truthfulness:
TRUE – The statement is accurate and there’s nothing significant missing.
MOSTLY TRUE – The statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information.
HALF TRUE – The statement is partially accurate but leaves out important details or takes things out of context.
MOSTLY FALSE – The statement contains an element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression.
FALSE – The statement is not accurate.
PANTS ON FIRE – The statement is not accurate and makes a ridiculous claim.
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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 Georgia pondered this question last week: Can you get high from using cannabis oil, the form some parents argue should be approved for children suffering from seizures?
That will no doubt be a hot topic as lawmakers resume debate next month on whether to legalize some forms of medical marijuana
We also updated readers on a campaign promise Nathan Deal made in his first bid for governor in 2010 as his first term draws to a close.
We also looked at whether President Barack Obama has “the worst record of any president when it comes to putting America deeper in debt.” And we looked at one pundit’s claim that there’s no “good data” that second-hand smoke kills.
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Abbreviated versions of our fact checks are below.
Full versions can be found at www.politifact.com/georgia/
Allen Peake on Wednesday, December 3rd, 2014 in a press conference at the Georgia State Capitol
Unlike marijuana, medical cannabis oil cannot get you high.
State lawmakers have a month before they get back to work in the 2015 legislative session and already the debate over medical marijuana has gotten into the, ahem, weeds.
State Rep. Allen Peake, R-Macon has revived a bill aimed at legalizing the use of cannabis oil made from marijuana plants for treatment of certain health problems, including seizure disorders in children.
“We believe that the medical cannabis oil – very low in THC, that doesn’t have a psychoactive component to it, cannot get you high – is a better approach for our citizens,” Peake said at a Dec. 3 press conference.
Eleven states – including neighboring Alabama, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee – have laws allowing cannabis oil products for limited medical uses.
The key difference in allowing the oil, supporters say, is that it is high in cannabidiol (CBD, an antioxidant) and low in tetrahydrocannabinol (mind-altering THC).
Both are compounds found in the marijuana plant that act on cell receptors that control neurotransmitters in the brain and the immune system from various organs, such as the spleen.
None of the existing studies or anecdotes from parents acknowledge or report any “high” from cannabis oil.
We rated Peake’s statement True.
Reince Priebus on Tuesday, December 2nd, 2014 in a speech
Says Barack Obama has “the worst record of any president when it comes to putting America deeper in debt.”
Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, said President Barack Obama has “the worst record of any president when it comes to putting America deeper in debt,” according to an account in The Hill newspaper.
He brought up the national debt on Dec. 2, 2014, right around the time the broadest measure of national debt broke through the $18 trillion barrier for the first time.
He went on to call the growth in debt “immoral” and said voters had “tired of Democrats’ free-spending ways.”
Our research shows that, on Obama’s watch, debt as a share of GDP rose far faster than it did during any prior presidency.
But if you look at the current amount of debt compared to where he started, the rise was not as fast as it was under President Ronald Reagan and the elder George Bush, two Republican predecessors. And while presidents bear some responsibility for debt accumulation, much of the equation — economic and demographic changes and the consequences of prior president’s actions, in particular — is out of their control.
The statement is partially accurate but leaves out important details, so we rated the statement by Priebus Half True.
Nathan Deal 2010 campaign promise
Create program to spur business development
As Nathan Deal prepares for a second term, PolitiFact’s taking a look back at some of the promises he made when he first ran for governor in 2010. Georgia needed to regain its economic footing, and Deal promised to create programs to spur business development. He
specifically, he said he wanted to establish certified capital companies, also known as CAPCOs, in Georgia.
The concept: Insurance companies operating in Georgia would receive state tax credits to invest in businesses, CAPCOs, that would then invest in small businesses and startups. The hope was these businesses would create jobs.
That was an idea floating in Georgia as far back as 2002.
State lawmakers actually approved a CAPCO program in 2002. But it was controversial here and in other states.
In 2013, the General Assembly passed and Deal signed a bill creating a progra called Invest Georgia that Deal spokesman Brian Robinson says will “serve similar aims.”
“It will provide money for start-ups and such,” Robinson said.
Wesley Tharpe, a policy analyst with the left-leaning Georgia Budget & Policy Institute, said Invest Georgia is “better designed than CAPCO, which he called a “flawed model” relying on “expensive tax credits.”
Invest Georgia is based on “some promising policies from other states, Tharpe said.
We rated this Promise Kept.
John Stossel on Thursday, December 4th, 2014 in an interview on “Fox and Friends”
“There is no good data showing secondhand smoke kills people.”
In a discussion about waning personal freedom in the free world, Fox pundit John Stossel went off about the onslaught of government rules and regulations telling Americans what they can do and when, where and how they can do it.
He used cigarette-smoking as an example, arguing that business owners should have the right to allow smoking in their bars or restaurants even where ordinances or laws ban the practice.
“Yeah, they kill smokers,” Stossel said on Fox & Friends of cigarettes. “But there is no good data showing secondhand smoke kills people.”
Stossel’s definition of “good” might be different than ours, but there is plenty of scientific research and consensus that secondhand smoke does indeed kill people.
Consensus on secondhand smoke really began to form in the 1980s, even as the tobacco industry’s”doubt-creation machine” spun opposing talking points, said Dr. Jonathan Samet, senior scientific editor of the 2014 surgeon general report and director of the University of Southern California’s Institute for Global Health.
The surgeon general’s 2006 report stated rather bluntly that inhaling secondhand smoke “causes lung cancer and coronary heart disease in nonsmoking adults.” Involuntary exposure to tobacco smoke killed more than 49,000 nonsmokers in 2005, plus 430 newborns who died of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, the report said.
In 2014, the acting surgeon general released a new report, one that factored in input from more than 80 contributing authors and 150 reviewers who are experts in medicine and public health. Secondhand smoke can also increase risk of stroke, the new report found. Beyond that, involuntary exposure poses significant problems for children, worsening asthma and leading to other respiratory conditions.
Since 1964, the report said, 2.46 million non-smokers have died from exposure to secondhand smoke.
The data is solid, and we rated Stossel’s claim as False.
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