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FactCheck Mailbag
FactCheck Mailbag, Week of March 19-25.
See letters from previous weeks“ Criticizing the Democrats for citing the only available study on gun purchases for its age seems wide of the target. ” -
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2012 Players Guide
Monthly Archives: October 2008
Obama Voted Against Troop Funding?
Palin repeated the claim that Obama “voted against funding our troops.” The claim refers to a single 2007 vote against a war funding bill. Obama voted for a version of the bill that included language calling for withdrawing troops from Iraq. President Bush vetoed it. (McCain supported that veto, but …
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Posted in The FactCheck Wire
Tagged military, Sarah Palin, troop funding, vice presidential debate
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The Iraqi Surplus
Biden said that Iraq had an “$80 billion surplus.” Obama said the same — $79 billion — in the last debate, and we called him on it then. Seventy-nine billion is an out-of-date projection. The Iraqis currently have $29 billion in the bank, and could have $47 billion to $59 …
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Posted in The FactCheck Wire
Tagged Iraq, Iraqi surplus, Joe Biden, vice presidential debate
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2005 Energy Bill Deja Vu
Palin threw out an old canard when she criticized Obama for voting for the 2005 Energy bill, saying, “that’s what gave those oil companies those big tax breaks.” It’s a false attack Clinton used against Obama in the primary and McCain himself has hurled. It’s true that the bill gave …
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Posted in The FactCheck Wire
Tagged energy bill, oil, oil companies, Sarah Palin, tax breaks, vice presidential debate
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Killing Afghan Civilians?
Obama did say that troops in Afghanistan were killing civilians, a claim that Palin calls “untrue.” Here’s the whole quote, from a campaign stop in New Hampshire: Obama, August 2007: We’ve got to get the job done there and that requires us to have enough troops so that we’re not …
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Troop Levels Off
Palin got her numbers wrong on troop levels when she said that troops were now down to “pre-surge” levels. The surge was announced in January 2007, at which point there were 132,000 troops in Iraq according to the Brookings Institute Iraq Index. As of September 2008, that number was 146,000. …
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Posted in The FactCheck Wire
Tagged Iraq, Sarah Palin, troop levels, troop surge, vice presidential debate
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McCain Mentions Us
It wasn’t exactly in a favorable light, per se. On NPR’s “Morning Edition” today, anchor Steve Inskeep asked Sen. John McCain about balancing honor and winning in a campaign that Inskeep called “brutal.” In their conversation, Inskeep asked about a particular ad that we found to be “false”: Inskeep: Have …
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Who Caused the Economic Crisis?
Summary A MoveOn.org Political Action ad plays the partisan blame game with the economic crisis, charging that John McCain’s friend and former economic adviser Phil Gramm “stripped safeguards that would have protected us.” The claim is bogus. Gramm’s legislation had broad bipartisan support and was signed into law by President …
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Posted in Articles
Tagged economic crisis, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, John McCain, MoveOn.org, Phill Gramm
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