FOR

IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Contact: Allen Blakemore

Tuesday, May 29, 2018 713-526-3399

Patrick Campaign Gives HAIR ON FIRE Award to Politifact Texas
So-called fact-check is a combination of cheap shots and outright lies

HOUSTON, TX - Texans for Dan Patrick announced today it is awarding Politifact
Texas, a left-leaning opinion column published by the Austin American-Statesman,
its first HAIR ON FIRE Award. In making the award Allen Blakemore, spokesman for
Texans for Dan Patrick, issued the following statement:

“Far from the objective fact-checker it portrays itself to be, Politifact Texas is a
combination of cheap shots and outright lies that few thinking people, including the
conservative majority of Texans, bother to read. When Texans for Dan Patrick
decided to establish the HAIR ON FIRE Award to expose screaming left-wing false
narratives and fake news in the Texas press, Politifact Texas was the obvious choice
for the first designation. No one is more deserving of this award.”

To demonstrate the duplicitous and dishonest manner in which Politifact Texas
operates, Blakemore detailed a recent query to the Patrick campaign:

Last week, the Patrick campaign received several questions from Politifact Texas:

From: Selby, Gardner (CMG-Austin)
Date: May 25, 2018
…In last Sunday’s interview with George Stephanopoulos of ABC News, Lt.
Governor Patrick said: “It’s against the laws in Texas to let any loaded gun get
in the hands of a child.” What law was Patrick referring to?...

That would be Texas Penal Code Section 46.13 as virtually anyone who is looking at
the aftermath of the Santa Fe shooting would know. The Texas penal code is online,
and the answer is available with a quick Google search.

The second question read:

From: Selby, Gardner (CMG-Austin)
Date: May 25, 2018
Continued… Patrick also said that 97 percent of teenagers, according to
psychiatrists and psychologists, watch video games and 85 percent of those are
violent games. Can you share the origin of those statistics?...

pd pol ad | Texans for Dan Patrick | www.DanPatrick.org

Again, a quick Google search will yield the most prominent research by the
American Psychological Association, which includes the statistics the Lt. Governor
mentioned in his remarks.

These are the only actual fact check questions Politifact Texas asked and the writers
undoubtedly already know the answers. Next Politifact Texas asks:

From: Selby, Gardner (CMG-Austin)
Date: May 25, 2018
Continued… Does the Lt. Governor believe that video games lead to shootings
like the one at Santa Fe High School? If so, how did he reach that conclusion? If
not, what does Patrick believe to be the significance of video games to violent
events?

These final questions aren’t “fact-checkable” and are clearly outside of Politifact
Texas’s scope. Politifact Texas included them in an effort to distort and misinform.

The Lt. Governor has said repeatedly he believes the shooting in Santa Fe was the
result of a variety of factors from failure to secure our schools and arm school
personnel to a devaluation of life and a proliferation of violence in our culture.

The Lt. Governor also believes video games can lead to violence. So do the leading
national medical associations, including the American Medical Association,
American Psychological Association, the Surgeon General's office and the National
Institute of Mental Health. That is their expert opinion based on a review of over a
thousand studies. The video game industry, predictably, disagrees and funds their
own research. Not surprisingly, there are “experts” whose job it is to assert that
video games do not desensitize teenagers to violence or cause them to act out.

We all know what happens next. Politifact Texas will find a pro-violent video game
“expert” who disagrees on this issue and in short order they will pronounce the Lt.
Governor’s statement wrong – or mostly wrong or even “pants on fire” wrong based
on nothing but a contrary opinion. They will present this contrary opinion as a “fact”
and call their review a “fact check.”

It’s a journalism scam that has been going on far too long and has earned Politifact
Texas the first HAIR ON FIRE Award from Texans for Dan Patrick.

Other Lies & Cheap Shots by Politifact Texas

Earlier this spring, Politifact Texas “fact-checked” a statement by the Lt. Governor’s
Democrat opponent charging that the Lt. Governor had cut funding for teacher
retirement and health care. Despite statements from retired teacher advocates
confirming that Lt. Governor led fight to increase funding for teacher retirement and
health care, Politifact Texas pronounced the outrageous claim by the Democrat to be
“Mostly True.”

Politifact Texas also contacted the Patrick campaign this spring to challenge Lt.
Governor Patrick’s statement that he “stood up to President Obama when he refused
to support our police.” Ironically, the Lt. Governor’s challenge to the former
president was reported in the press by the same reporter who writes Politifact
Texas.

Politifact Texas famously discredited the infamous Texas Association of Business
study declaring that Texas would suffer irreversible economic harm if the state
mandated separate restrooms for men and women. It was notable that Politifact
Texas waited 52 days before they issued their “fact check” of the TAB’s “report”
allowing the phony” study” to be repeatedly reported across Texas and nationally.
Politifact Texas has yet to “fact-check” statements by anti-privacy advocates in
Houston who predicted that the rejection of open bathroom ordinances there would
lead to economic ruin for the city.

Our catalog of similar dishonest tactics by Politifact Texas is extensive and
demonstrates the worst of Texas journalism. Our verdict, the screaming, left-wing
HAIR ON FIRE Award goes to Politifact Texas.

For more information about Texans for Dan Patrick go to DanPatrick.org.

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