We’ve received a number of queries about a photograph purporting to show President Obama at Arlington National Cemetery on Veterans Day, listening to the national anthem without his hand over his heart. Anyone who saw news coverage of Obama on Veterans Day might have smelled a rat right away: He didn’t wear a red tie that day, as he does in the picture, but a blue one, and he wore a winter coat over his suit. (We’ve seen some e-mails claiming that the picture is from the Ft.... Click to Read the Full Post
Q: Was Obama reading an anti-America book written by a Muslim? A: No. The book, a New York Times best-seller, is about America’s role in a new global era. The author, a leading journalist, is a Muslim but describes himself as "not a religious guy." Click to Read the Full Post Read More →
Like many disagreements in the digital age, it all started with a post on Facebook. Last Friday, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin posted a note to her Facebook page and introduced a new term to the health care debate: Palin, Aug. 7: The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s “death panel” so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their “level of productivity... Click to Read the Full Post
Recent comments by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that swastikas and other Nazi imagery had been appearing at lawmakers’ town hall meetings on health care set off furious rounds of tweeting and blogging by outraged conservatives. The episode began when the California Democrat was asked by a reporter whether she thought there was "legitimate grassroots opposition" at the meetings to congressional health care overhaul plans. She replied: Pelosi: I think they are Astroturf.... Click to Read the Full Post
In a July 6 interview with Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta, President Obama repeated his false claim that the U.S. “import[s] more oil today than ever before.” When Obama first said this in February during an address to a joint-session of Congress, we wrote that the president had gotten his facts wrong. We said then that oil imports peaked in 2005 and have “substantially” declined since. That’s still the case. This chart from the U.S. Energy Information Administration,... Click to Read the Full Post
Q: Was Obama rude to wounded veterans during a visit to the National Naval Medical Center? A: A chain e-mail that makes such a claim gets several facts wrong and is disputed by an official who was present at the meeting. Click to Read the Full Post Read More →
Q: Is Obama planning to increase the federal tax on gun ammunition by 500 percent? A: No such proposal has been made by the Obama administration. And nobody in Congress has introduced any bill to increase the 11 percent federal excise tax on ammo. Click to Read the Full Post Read More →
Earlier this week we wrote about a television ad from Americans United for Change and found it to be misleading. The ad claimed that "a new poll shows that 62 percent of Americans support" President Obama’s "plan to reform health care." Americans United for Change disagreed with our analysis and Deputy Communications Director Lauren Weiner sent us an e-mail to say: Weiner: Our "62%" ad is based on the Diageo/Hotline poll which asked voters if they supported Congress... Click to Read the Full Post
The liberal advocacy group Americans United for Change has released a new ad backing President Obama’s "plan to reform health care." According to the ad, "a new poll shows that 62 percent of Americans support" the plan. But that’s misleading. The poll in question, conducted for Diageo/Hotline, didn’t ask respondents about a specific plan. Rather, it asked whether they supported or opposed a "major overhaul" of the health care system, without any specifics. Diageo/Hotline... Click to Read the Full Post
Summary We found several claims in Obama’s recent health-care sales pitches that could use some explanation or qualification. He said "the average family pays a thousand dollars in extra premiums to pay for people going to the emergency room who don’t have health insurance." That’s from a recent report by Families USA, a group that lobbies for expanded government coverage. But another study for the authoritative Kaiser Family Foundation thinks that figure is far... Click to Read the Full Post
