It’s the fiery end of the line for rhetorical misfires from politicians and power brokers.
The nonpartisan fact-checkers at PolitiFact call our lowest rating Pants On Fire. And quite simply it means a statement is not only untrue, but ridiculously so.
Summaries of a few of our favorite absurdly misguided statements from 2015 can be found below.
Full fact checks can be found at www.politifact.com/georgia.
Comments are always welcome, and suggestions taken, at our Facebook page and on Twitter.
Juda Engelmayer on March 13 in interviews
Creflo Dollar needed a $65 million Gulfstream G-650 to carry thousands of pounds of food and other supplies — as well as the word of God — worldwide.
Pastor Creflo Dollar and other leaders in World Changers Church International in College Park launched and then dropped a campaign that asked followers to pony up $65 million for a top-of-the-line luxury jet. It’s an airplane generally reserved for world leaders, the top crop of business executives and billionaires.
One rationale given for buying the aircraft was that the church needed to be able to carry thousands of pounds of food and other goods — as well as ministers bringing the word of God — to other parts of the world.
That argument, by Dollar’s spokesman, Juda Engelmayer, never got off the runway.
It is inaccurate and bordering on ridiculous.
Viral Facebook image on Oct. 1
Pope Francis uses a modest compact car to get around, while Creflo Dollar drives an expensive sports car.
The image that showed up in the PolitiFact Georgia in-box had already pinged wildly around social media.
The top part showed the pope waving from the back seat of a small four-door Fiat 500L. Below it was a photo of a driver purported to be College Park megachurch pastor Creflo Dollar tooling in a shiny silver roadster with an EU license plate.
The roadster driver is actually rapper Kanye West, making the image clearly false.
Even the context — trying to draw distinction between a supposedly humble servant of God with an apparently audacious one — ignores the fact that both the pope and Dollar have ready access to lavish luxuries.
Reader on Oct. 24 in a Tweet to PolitiFact Georgia
“How is a misogynist bigot of epic proportions (like U.S. Rep. Steven Smith) allowed to serve?”
We have sincere concerns after hearing from a reader alarmed at the outlandish statements posted on Twitter by “Rep. Steve Smith” of Valdosta.
“Please check out hate-filled (timeline) of @RepStevenSmith,” the reader asked us. “How is a misogynist bigot of epic proportions allowed to serve? Dangerous.”
The outrageous statements in question come from a parody account, not that of a real U.S. representative.
How can someone like that serve?
The U.S. Constitution says the only rules to serve are to be at least 25, a citizen for seven years and a resident of the state electing you.
Of course, all those requirements mean you do have to be real.
U.S. Steven Smith, alas, is not.
Viral image on social media, Nov. 17
While Americans pray for Paris, the government has acted on mandatory national vaccinations.
Shots for everyone!
Now that’s the kind of sentiment PolitiFact Georgia could get behind. Then we opened the email with that subject line and saw our alert reader meant vaccinations, not Fireball.
The question was about a meme that appeared on Facebook and other social media sites in the wake of the terrorist attack in Paris.
The wording, over the image of a syringe with a skull inside and the words National Mandatory Vaccinations stamped on top, was awkwardly clear:
“While Americans pray for Paris, France, their government sent HR (House Resolution) 2232 to Congress,” it read.
There is a proposal for a similar law. But there has been no movement on the proposal since a week after it was introduced last spring.
That’s the last bit of truth to the meme.
The rest of the message and implication border on the ludicrous.
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