Saturday, August 11, 2007

Liberal bias at urban legend site Snopes?

Does urban legend web site Snopes.com have a liberal bias? Many think so. SR Blog will take a look in a series of posts, of which this is the first.

The first to examine concerns Nancy Pelosi. Snopes' Barbara Mikkelson examines an email claim that that has circulated which accuses the Democrat House majority leader of wanting to raise capital gains taxes to 100%. Snopes determines this is false (an urban legend of sorts).

And indeed it is. But while context is important to Snopes in other matters they look into, here they are content to let a simple FALSE stand as the answer, rather than point out the whole truth, which is that Pelosi supports the repeal of the Bush tax cuts, would raise the capital gains tax rate if she had the votes to override a likely Bush veto (or if a Democrat were to take the White House), and at least some of that money would be resdistributed to the poor and working class. See

Nancy Pelosi Tax Voting Record and Independent Ratings OnTheIssues.org, updated continuously:
Voted NO on retaining reduced taxes on capital gains & dividends. (Dec 2005)
Voted NO on providing tax relief and simplification. (Sep 2004)
Voted NO on making permanent an increase in the child tax credit. (May 2004)
Voted NO on permanently eliminating the marriage penalty. (Apr 2004)
Voted NO on making the Bush tax cuts permanent. (Apr 2002)
Voted NO on $99 B economic stimulus: capital gains & income tax cuts. (Oct 2001)
Voted NO on Tax cut package of $958 B over 10 years. (May 2001)
Voted NO on eliminating the Estate Tax ("death tax"). (Apr 2001)
Voted NO on eliminating the "marriage penalty". (Jul 2000)
Voted NO on $46 billion in tax cuts for small business. (Mar 2000)
American People's Dividend: Give $300 to every person. (Feb 2001)
Rated 21% by NTU [National Taxpayers Union], indicating a "Big Spender" on tax votes. (Dec 2003)
Tax incentives for child care; eliminate marriage penalty. (Jul 1999)
Tax incentives for education, new schools, & families. (Jul 1999)
Edwards' Tax Code Plan Probably A Poor Solution, Tyler Morning Telegraph, 7/30/07

Ready for a Pelosi Tax Hike?, Human Events, 5/15/06

Hedging Your Votes, Stephen Spruiell, National Review, 7/13/07

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

You are absolutely correct. Here is a link for a snopes artical about an Obama e-mail http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/church.asp . They say the e-mail is "False," but their own explanation of why it is false lead me to conclude that the e-mail is true.

Anonymous said...

C'mon, gimme a break. Snopes acknowledged Pelosi has left of center views. off of which the parody
played. The parody was so unbelievable that I could hardly imagine any intelligent, educated person believing it. But a person who
sends e-mail rumors of anonymous origin, almost all of them substantially false or wholly cut from the whole cloth, swallowed it hold. Her tag line? "Unbelievable"
Good reason it's unbelievable, it's UNTRUE! It's a sad testimony to the horrific state of civic education in this country that multitudes don't know any better than to believe such bilge.

As for not dwelling on Pelosi's voting record in its debunking of this parody -- which is taken seriously by people who didn't take civics seriously when they last studied it in high school or college -- check out TruthOrFiction's post on the same topic. This is an avowedly conservative outfit, and yet I don't believe that it dwells much on Rep. Pelosi's voting record, either, choosing to concentrate on the central issue.
If you're seeking to imply that it's easy to believe the parody, given the lawmaker's real record, I say -- not an intelligent and well-educated person

JD Reed xbsdzhf