Q: Have 84 members of Congress been arrested for drunk driving in the last year? Have seven been arrested for fraud? A: We judge these statistics to be not credible. They originated nearly a decade ago with a Web site that still refuses to provide any proof or documentation, or even to name those accused. Click to Read the Full Post Read More →
Summary Last year, the president touted U.S. gains in education, saying that our "fourth- and eighth-graders achieved the highest math scores on record." He bragged that "African-American and Hispanic students posted all-time highs." Last week, the president said those eighth-graders weren’t so great at math after all. He claimed they had "fallen to ninth place" in the world, and he bemoaned a high school dropout rate that had "tripled" over three decades. What... Click to Read the Full Post
Summary Conservative politicians have claimed that the stimulus bill requires that doctors follow government orders on what medical treatments can and can’t be prescribed. But the bill doesn’t say that. Rep. Tom Price of Georgia says the measure creates "a national health care rationing board." Not true. What it creates is a council to coordinate research into which treatments work best, and are most effective for the money. And in fact, the new law states quite specifically... Click to Read the Full Post
Q: Was Bush’s exit from office a "Class Act" compared with Clinton’s? A: A widely forwarded e-mail contains some false and exaggerated claims, along with some truths. It also contains made-up headlines about Obama. Click to Read the Full Post Read More →
Q: Is President Obama planning to have the military swear an oath to him rather than to the Constitution? A: No, the "news report" that makes this claim is intended as satire. Click to Read the Full Post Read More →
Q: Is the government outlawing the resale of children’s clothing? A: Not explicitly. A recently passed law won’t ban resale, but it will hold resellers responsible for selling items with lead content that exceeds new limits. Some resellers are fearful this will force them out of business. Click to Read the Full Post Read More →
Q: Did Barack Obama’s inauguration really cost 4 times as much as George Bush’s 2005 inauguration? A: Claims of a huge disparity are untrue. Actually, an apples-to-apples comparison shows that the two inaugurations likely cost about the same. Click to Read the Full Post Read More →
During his last press conference with White House reporters yesterday, President Bush defended his administration’s response to Hurricane Katrina, saying, “don’t tell me the federal response was slow when there was 30,000 people pulled off roofs right after the storm passed.” He even repeated the statistic three times. The performance of the Coast Guard in response to the natural disaster has been commended by many, but that statistic is a bit inflated, according to the Guard’s own records. While... Click to Read the Full Post
In her first sit-down interview since securing the Republican v.p. slot, Sarah Palin talked about her position on the Bush Doctrine with ABC’s Charlie Gibson: Here’s the relevant section of the exchange: Gibson: The Bush Doctrine, as I understand it, is that we have the right of anticipatory self-defense; that we have the right to a preemptive strike against any other country that we think is going to attack us. Do you agree with that? Palin: Charlie, if there is enough intelligent... Click to Read the Full Post
John Kerry has promised that, if elected, his economic policies will produce 10 million new jobs. Some FactCheck.org subscribers have asked us why we haven’t de-bunked that claim, given that the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) counted only 8.4 million who were unemployed as of March. Most recently, "Rich" wrote us saying Kerry’s promise appears to be "irresponsible": Rich: Not only would the creation of 10 million jobs eliminate unemployment in the US, but Kerry... Click to Read the Full Post
