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The State of Obama’s Facts

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

FactCheck - By Brooks Jackson, D’Angelo Gore, Eugene Kiely, Robert Farley, Ben Finley, Lori Robertson - Jan. 25 (Fact Check) - The president’s State of the Union address got the facts right — mostly. Obama said “the Taliban’s momentum has been broken” in Afghanistan. But targeted assassinations continue, and at least one independent foreign policy expert says the enemy may just be waiting until the U.S. leaves. The president said a get-tough tariff on tire imports from China has saved more than 1,000 U.S. jobs. But tire industry officials say Chinese imports have simply been replaced by imports from other countries. He took credit for putting “more boots on the border than ever before.” That’s true, but the big increase was under George W. Bush. And a decrease in illegal border crossings is due mainly to the lack of jobs in the U.S., experts say. Often the president’s facts and figures were accurate — but not the whole story. It’s true (barely) that Bush issued more new regulations than Obama at the same point in their presidencies — but Obama didn’t mention that his cost more. The president pointed proudly to increased oil drilling, increased U.S. oil production, and declining dependence on imports. But understandably he passed over any mention of chronically high gasoline prices, which hit a record of sorts last year. And he boasted of recent increases in jobs — which still number nearly 1.7 million fewer than when he took office.

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Attacks Against Gingrich: How Accurate?

Fri, 23 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

FactCheck - By Robert Farley, Lori Robertson, D’Angelo Gore, Brooks Jackson - Dec. 23 (Fact Check) - A pro-Romney group is savaging Newt Gingrich with TV ads and mailers to Iowa Republicans. Gingrich dismisses the attacks as “lies.” We find that some of the claims from Restore Our Future are indeed distorted, false or misleading. But several are also right on target. A TV spot makes a distorted claim that Gingrich co-sponsored a bill containing money for a United Nations program “supporting China’s brutal one-child policy.” The truth is that bill specifically prohibited the use of funds for “involuntary sterilization or abortion,” or “the coercion of any person to accept family planning services.” The funding in question was a small part of a much larger bill which died before ever coming up for a vote. The same ad says Gingrich earned “$30,000 an hour” from Freddie Mac — an exaggeration. His firm got between $25,000 and $30,000 a month and Gingrich said he personally spent only about one hour per month meeting with Freddie Mac officials. But his firm had many employees and overhead expenses, too.

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The Whoppers of 2011

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

FactCheck - By Brooks Jackson - Dec. 21 (Fact Check) - Despite what you may have heard in 2011: The new health care law won’t cost many jobs (and they’ll be poorly paying jobs at that). Republicans aren’t proposing to “end” Medicare (and Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden has signed onto a modified version of the GOP plan). Most of the “millionaires” who would pay higher tax rates under a Democratic proposal aren’t job-creating small-business owners. President Obama’s mother didn’t really fight to get health insurance coverage as she was dying. And there was plenty more spin and deception in 2011. Obama claimed he pays a lower tax rate than a teacher. Michele Bachmann endorsed a claim that HPV vaccine causes mental retardation. Joe Biden claimed rapes quadrupled in Flint, Mich., after police layoffs. And that’s just some of the nonsense we debunked.

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Suspect Claims from Obama’s ’60 Minutes’ Interview

Tue, 13 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

FactCheck - By D'Angelo Gore - Dec. 13 (Fact Check) - President Barack Obama made a couple of questionable claims during a recent interview with Steve Kroft of CBS’ “60 Minutes.” Obama said that “John McCain’s former economist” said that the stimulus “created or saved 3 millions jobs.” Mark Zandi did say that the stimulus created about that many jobs, but … More >>

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Gingrich On Climate Change

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

FactCheck - By Brooks Jackson - Dec. 07 (Fact Check) - Newt Gingrich went too far when he claimed that “I’ve never favored cap-and-trade.” It’s true he’s never favored the approach taken by Democrats, but he said in 2007 that he would “strongly support” cap-and-trade if combined with “a tax-incentive program for investing in the solutions”.

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Bachmann’s Bad Economics

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

FactCheck - By Eugene Kiely, Dave Bloom - Dec. 07 (Fact Check) - Michele Bachmann wrongly claims there is “not one shred of evidence that lowering the payroll tax rate created jobs.” Actually, the economy has gained more than 1.4 million jobs in the 11 months since the payroll tax holiday began. That’s 84 percent more jobs than were added in the same … More >>

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Flipping Through DNC Playbook on Romney

Thu, 01 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

FactCheck - By Eugene Kiely, Lori Robertson, Robert Farley, Brooks Jackson, D’Angelo Gore, Scott Blackburn, Lalita Clozel - Dec. 01 (Fact Check) - The Democratic National Committee casts Mitt Romney as an untrustworthy flip-flopper in a lengthy Web video, but pads a long list of examples with some falsehoods and distortions. It's true that Romney has changed or modified his position on some major issues -- including abortion, a federal assault weapons ban and Reaganomics, as the DNC says. But the video strains the truth ... More >>

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Fact check: GOP national security debate

Wed, 23 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0800

FactCheck - By Brooks Jackson, Lori Robertson, Robert Farley - Nov. 23 (Fact Check) - The latest GOP debate was thin on memorable moments or major factual bloopers, but we do have some leftover claims to dispute before we shut down for the Thanksgiving holiday. We wouldn't want anybody's turkey dinner to be spoiled by worries that terrorists have come over the border with Mexico, for example. We also found misstatements about an oil pipeline, presidential contacts with Iran and cuts to the defense budget.

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Romney’s Ad ‘Deceitful & Dishonest’?

Wed, 23 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0800

FactCheck - By Brooks Jackson - Nov. 23 (Fact Check) - The Obama campaign is in a lather over Mitt Romney’s first TV spot, calling it “a deceitful and dishonest attack” because of an edited quote from 2008. That’s a matter of opinion. We find a far more consequential issue is the ad’s exaggerated claim that the new health care law … More >>

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GOP’s Phantom Job Losses

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0800

FactCheck - By Eugene Kiely - Nov. 22 (News) - Ooops! Republicans — eager to show that President Obama’s oil and gas drilling policies “cost jobs” — have been using a number they now admit was more than three times too high. Even after they corrected their error (after we pointed it out), they started using a figure that is … More >>

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‘Government-Run’ Nonsense

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0800

FactCheck - By Brooks Jackson - Nov. 22 (Fact Check) - The U.S. Chamber of Commerce puts a new twist on a tired old falsehood about “government-run health care” in one of its new ads attacking Democratic lawmakers. We noted other dubious claims as well. An ad against Sen. Jon Tester in Montana accuses him of favoring “government-run health care”

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The Fall TV Season’s Senate Air Wars

Wed, 16 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0800

FactCheck - By Robert Farley - Nov. 16 (News) - The November elections are still nearly a year away, but the TV air wars over Senate seats have officially begun in earnest. The balance of power is up for grabs, and outside groups are pouring millions into ads attacking candidates in key Senate races. The biggest plays have come from Crossroads GPS ... More >>

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Fact-check: South Carolina Debate

Sun, 13 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0800

FactCheck - By Brooks Jackson, Eugene Kiely, Lori Robertson, Robert Farley - Nov. 13 (Fact Check) - We found several exaggerations and misstatements in the latest Republican presidential candidates’ debate. Romney issued a hollow threat to take China’s currency manipulation to a world body that doesn’t actually deal with overvalued money, and he claimed federal spending consumes more of the nation’s economic output than it really does. … More >>

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Boehner’s Big Stretch on Small Business

Fri, 11 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0800

FactCheck - By Robert Farley - Nov. 11 (Fact Check) - House Speaker John Boehner claimed that “small-business people” make up more than half of those who would be hit by a tax increase on “millionaires.” Not really. Only 13 percent of those making over $1 million get even as much as one-fourth of that income from small business, according to … More >>

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Herman Cain’s false attack on Planned Parenthood

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0700

FactCheck - By Lori Robertson - Nov. 02 (Fact Check) - Herman Cain has offered an alternate version of history in claiming that Planned Parenthood’s founder wanted to prevent “black babies from being born.” We find no support for that old claim. Cain also states that the organization built 75 percent of its clinics in black communities, but there’s no evidence that was true then. And today, only 9 percent of U.S. abortion clinics are in neighborhoods where half or more of residents are black, according to the most recent statistics.

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Haley Barbour’s ‘Amnesia’

Wed, 05 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0700

FactCheck - By Eugene Kiely - Oct. 05 (Fact Check) - Haley Barbour accused a fellow governor of “amnesia,” claiming he was forgetting “the fact that Obama had the biggest Democratic majorities in Congress since Lyndon Johnson.” But it was actually Republican Barbour who was having a memory lapse. He forgot about the Democrats’ massive victories following Richard Nixon’s Watergate scandal. … More >>

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Obama’s Teacher Tax Whopper

Thu, 29 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

FactCheck - By Brooks Jackson - Sep. 29 (Fact Check) - President Obama’s claim that he pays a lower tax rate than a teacher making $50,000 a year isn’t true. A single taxpayer with $50,000 of income would have paid 11.9 percent in federal income taxes for 2010, while the Obamas paid more than twice that rate — 25.3 percent (and higher rates than that in 2009 and 2008). And if the $50,000-a-year teacher were in Obama’s tax situation — supporting a spouse and two children — he or she would have paid no federal income taxes at all.

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On Perry's Statement: Romneys health care law killed jobs

Wed, 28 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

FactCheck - By Lori Robertson - Sep. 28 (News) - The Perry campaign has been pushing a questionable claim that the Massachusetts health care law, signed by then-Gov. Mitt Romney in 2006, “killed 18,000 jobs.” But that number was churned out by an economic model used by a conservative think tank, and it’s unknown whether the figure is accurate.

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Fanciful ‘Facts’ At Fox News Debate

Sat, 24 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

FactCheck - By Brooks Jackson - Sep. 24 (Fact Check) - Nine Republican presidential candidates debated for two hours in Orlando, Fla., and they served up more exaggerations and falsehoods — about Obama, each other, and even Thomas Jefferson. Perry claimed Romney supports Obama’s Race to the Top education initiative. In fact, while Romney has praised some of the program’s … More >>

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Why Do They Do It?

Fri, 16 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

FactCheck - By Brooks Jackson - Sep. 16 (Opinion) - Why do politicians persist in peddling exaggerations, twisted facts and outright falsehoods? Here's a theory from a veteran political reporter. Jon Keller of WBZ in Boston offered up his explanation in his "Keller @ Large" commentary for Sept. 15. It was prompted by our coverage of the recent Republican presidential candidates' debate and our criticism of President Obama's jobs speech. We were flattered by the nice mention, of course. But what really caught our attention was Keller's conclusion: Jon Keller, Sept. 15: The president and all his allies and enemies have one thing in common — they frequently cite and repeat falsehoods that reflect, at best, sloppiness and carelessness, and, at worst, outright dishonesty. Why do they think they can get away with this reprehensible behavior? Because we do it all the time ourselves. We repeat gossip and rumor, forward garbage e-mails, and convince ourselves that falsehoods which fit our world view are actually the truth. So I’m wondering – why would we expect the people who represent us to not reflect us in this way as well? We see evidence of that every day at FactCheck.org. Readers forward to us an endless stream of chain emails they have received containing false claims. The emails come from family, friends or acquaintances who either don't know that they are repeating falsehoods, or don't care. Some of these messages have been circulating for years, despite being debunked by us and often by other myth-busting sites as well. So do we, the public, get the politicians we deserve? That's a question worth pondering before sending on that viral email that so perfectly confirms your opinions, but which you haven't really checked out for factual accuracy.

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Fact-check: CNN/Tea Party Debate

Wed, 14 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

FactCheck - By Eugene Kiely, Robert Farley, Lori Robertson, Brooks Jackson, D'Angelo Gore - Sep. 14 (Fact Check) - The GOP presidential candidates debated for the second time in six days -- tossing out a variety of false and misleading claims on everything from Social Security to vaccines for sexually transmitted diseases. ...

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FactChecking the Reagan Debate

Thu, 08 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

FactCheck - By Robert Farley, Brooks Jackson, Lori Robertson, D'Angelo Gore, Eugene Kiely - Sep. 08 (Fact Check) - The GOP candidates took some liberties when discussing jobs, Social Security, immigration, health care and other issues during the presidential debate at the Ronald Reagan Library: Perry exaggerated when he called Social Security a "Ponzi scheme" that won't be there for "kids that are 25 or 30 years old today." Social Security's finances — while troubled — are an open book, not an investment scam, and the program could still support 74 percent of promised benefits in 2085.

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Texas-Size Recovery

Wed, 31 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

FactCheck - By Lori Robertson - Aug. 31 (Fact Check) - Presidential candidate and Texas Gov. Rick Perry has boasted of significant job growth in his state in the past few years. And for good reason: It's true. While Texas clearly hasn't avoided the recession, the state has done well in terms of increasing jobs, when compared with the recovery nationally. Perry's claim that "40 percent … of all the jobs in America were created in Texas" since June 2009 is accurate. But it’s also true that the increase in jobs hasn't kept pace with the rise in the state's population — so the number of jobless Texans also has risen, along with the state’s unemployment rate. And Texas is tied with Mississippi for the highest percentage of hourly workers paid at or below the minimum wage.

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What Perry Really Said About Secession

Wed, 24 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

FactCheck - By Robert Farley - Aug. 24 (News) - The Obama team falsely suggests Texas Gov. Rick Perry advocated secession. Perry's actual remarks have been mischaracterized. Perry entertained a reporter's question about secession after a tea party rally in 2009, and warned that "if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, you know, who knows what may come out of that?" [...]

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FactChecking Iowa Debate

Fri, 12 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

FactCheck - By Lori Robertson, Eugene Kiely, Scott Blackburn, Lalita Clozel - Aug. 12 (News) - Republican presidential candidates squared off in Ames, Iowa, on Aug. 11, offering claims, criticism and arguments. We found some false and misleading statements among them: Herman Cain denied ever saying that communities have the right to ban mosques. But he did, in fact, say that. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney made the misleading claim that his state's "unemployment was below the federal level three of the four years I was in office." Yes, but the state rate was lower than the national rate before he took office and higher when he left. Romney also falsely suggested President Obama has never held a job, saying: "I think in order to create jobs, it's helpful to have had a job." Michele Bachmann wrongly said that raising the debt ceiling gave Obama a "blank check." But the set amount of money will be used to pay obligations Congress has authorized. Ron Paul said the CIA told him that there is "no evidence" Iran is "working on" a nuclear weapon. There's no solid proof, but the International Atomic Energy Agency says there are "possible military dimensions" to Iran's nuclear program. Bachmann also said that Tim Pawlenty "wanted" to institute an individual mandate requiring people to buy insurance in Minnesota. Pawlenty said he was "open to" the idea, but that's not the same as wanting to do it. Newt Gingrich said that one of the moderators was "handpicking" quotes "that fit your premise." But the Fox News anchor quoted Gingrich's comments on Libya accurately.

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