On Tuesday morning, the Palm Coast City Council will consider adopting a utility franchise fee that could add up to 6 percent to the cost of residents’ electric utility bills and significantly add to the city’s tax-revenue structure. In his opposition to the proposal, Palm Coast City Council member Ed Danko circulated a campaign email that made inaccurate and misleading statements.
Fact-Checking
Milissa Holland’s Daughter Responds to Danko’s Fabrications: Stop Bringing My Family Into This Immaturity
“I am 25 years old and the amount of immaturity displayed in this campaign is embarrassing,” writes Tori Holman, former Mayor Milissa Holland’s daughter. “To Mr. Danko and his detractors, Stop bringing my family into this mess to try to boost your votes. Stop bringing my family into this at all. To the rest of you, thank you.”
Danko-Lowe Campaign Fabrications: Governor’s Office Refutes Incendiary Claims About Holland “Criminal Charges”
Ed Danko, the Palm Coast City Council member working on behalf of Alan Lowe to get him elected mayor, has been making misleading or baseless statements, including outright lies, and leveling false and potentially defamatory accusations about former Mayor Milissa Holland, her ailing daughter and to some extent former City Manager Matt Morton, a FlaglerLive investigation found.
Five Lessons on Bringing Truth Back to Politics
Democracies have felt precarious – in the US, during the Trump presidency, and in countries like Brazil, Hungary and Poland currently. Integral to such corrosion of democracy (as George Orwell made clear in his novel 1984) is the distortion of truth and facts in favor of a particular agenda.
Calling Mullins ‘Pied Piper of Hate, Deception and Fraud,’ School Board’s Conklin Rips His Latest Attack on LGBTQ and GOP
Joe Mullins combined attacks on transgender people and local Republicans in an extended screed filled with falsehoods and mischaracterizations as he spoke to a local far-right Republican group, prompting the School Board’s Colleen Conklin to issue a severe condemnation and called him a “narcissistic beast.”
American Carnage: How Donald Trump Is Killing Us
The coronavirus has mutated into ideological variants. We are moving from a natural disaster to a man-made one, from statistically unavoidable deaths to deaths willed by indifference, ignorance, selfishness, and the political calculations of a single man. The consequences will compound rather than mitigate the pandemic.
County Falsely Claims Testing Increased ‘Significantly,’ But Positive Cases Have, to 75–And County Must Send Back 650 Junk Test Kits
Flagler County government issued false and misleading figures Friday regarding a surge in testing that never took place, and 650 kits that could have enabled a surge must be sent back because they’re flawed, officials now say.
Of Course Guns Have Nothing To Do With It
Mountains of evidence link America’s mass killings to the massive amount of guns in circulation, but let’s go ahead and pretend that guns have nothing to do with it, nor the absence of sensible gun control.
Trump Says He Knows About Health Care, But Some Of His Facts Seem Alternative
Trump said that “in a short period of time I understood everything there was to know about health care.” He does not, starting with his understanding of the health care act the House just passed.
Lawmakers’ Letters to Constituents on Health Care Are Full of Lies and Misinformation
As the GOP tries to rewrite–or “repeal and replace–the Affordable Care Act, lawmakers in both parties are incorrectly citing statistics, making false claims and leaving out important context in letters to constituents.
Fact-Check: When Jimmy Carter Threatened Iranian Students With Deportation
Donald Trump’s call for excluding Muslim travel to the U.S. is being inaccurately compared to President Carter’s 1979 and 1980 orders regarding Iranian students and travelers during the Iranian hostage crisis.
“Oh, Brother”: 165 Seconds of Errors as Candidate Richter Berates Commissioners Then Zips Out Before Corrections
Mark Richter, the first announced candidate for Flagler County Commission in 2016, was seriously fact-challenged in a brief appearance before commissioners today as he took on jail costs and the planned jail expansion.
Rep. DeSantis, Claiming to “Reject” Federal Pension Benefit, Misleads and Exaggerates
It is illegal for members of Congress not to participate in the retirement system U.S. Rep. Ron DeSantis (who represents Flagler) said he was rejecting. He is, in fact, not rejecting it, but claims will decline cashing the checks if and when he becomes eligible for them. It is only one of several misleading statements in an announcement this week.
Mitt Romney’s Claim on Redistribution Gets a Pants on Fire
Mitt Romney got a Pants on Fire slap from Politifact for his claim on Sept. 19 that “redistribution” has “never been a characteristic of America.” It very much has: it’s been built into the nation’s progressive tax code since the beginning of the 20th century.
Job-Killing Regulations: Busting the Myths
Job-killing regulations: Partisan myths and exaggerations aside, regulations may kill some jobs while creating others, netting a wash–and a vaster profit in protecting waterways, food, air and general safety.
Detox for Tax Fact Cheats
It’s a resilient urban legend: the top 5 percent of earners pay over 50 percent of taxes, and over half our citizens pay no taxes. It’s also false. Time to set the record straight.
Hot Air Over Climategate
Oklahoma Senator and chronic denier James Inhoffe claims the Climatic Research Unit e-mails show that the science behind climate change “has been pretty well debunked.” He’s wrong.
Limbaugh’s Oxycontin Math
Rush Limbaugh claims the November drop in the unemployment rate is questionable because it was calculated “over two days of the Thanksgiving week.” He’s wrong.