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Viral Spiral
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
Author Archives: Justin Bank
$700 Billion Blame Game
Summary We find House and Senate campaigns are taking liberties with the facts as they seek to assign blame for the nation’s financial mess. A Democratic ad in Kentucky accuses Republican Senate Leader McConnell of conduct bordering on the criminal, but falsely accuses him of taking $4.4 million from "big …
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Full FactCheck.org Report on Last Debate Up
We stayed up all night, and into the morning, but we do have a full analysis of last night’s debate to show for our efforts. Feel free to check it out here and see all the items we found during our live coverage of the debate right here on The …
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John Lewis and the News
McCain was a bit off the mark when he said Obama did not repudiate the remarks of Democratic Rep. John Lewis. Obama did release a statement that said he “did not believe” McCain “or his policy criticism is in any way comparable to George Wallace or his segregationist policies.” But …
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Posted in The FactCheck Wire
Tagged George Wallace, John Lewis, John McCain, presidential debate, rallies
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Constitutional Queries about the VP Debate
Hundreds of readers have written us asking why we didn’t point out Joe Biden’s confusion of Articles I and II of the Constitution during his debate with Gov. Sarah Palin on Oct. 2. We should have. While his rambling response was generally correct in describing the constitutional role of the …
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Obama 68 Million Acre Boast
Obama was off the mark when he said that oil companies have “68 million acres that they’re not using.” As we’ve pointed out previously, those 68 million acres of land are not producing oil, but they are not necessarily untouched. In fact, in 2006, the last year for which figures …
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McCain’s $6.8 Billion Boast
McCain repeated a questionable boast when he said, “I saved the taxpayers $6.8 billion” by reining in a defense contract. As we mentioned in our analysis of the first debate, there is more to the story. McCain certainly did lead a fight to kill the contract, and the effort ended …
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Posted in The FactCheck Wire
Tagged military, presidential debate, spending, spending cuts
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Obama Still Wrong about $79 Billion Figure
Again tonight Obama said that the U.S. was paying too much for the war in Iraq, while the Iraqis have a “$79 billion surplus.” As we’ve pointed out when Obama said it on the campaign trail, when he repeated it at the last debate, and even when Biden mentioned the …
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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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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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