Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele takes House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to task in an RNC fundraising e-mail for claiming that a tax increase isn’t a tax increase. But Steele adds some spin of his own, falsely charging that the tax in question falls on "middle class families and small businesses." The RNC mailer accuses Pelosi of using "political doublespeak to mislead the American people" and links to a clip of a CNBC interview in which the speaker is asked... Click to Read the Full Post
The Republican National Committee says it will be running this new TV ad in Florida and on selected cable networks starting Sept. 1. It features GOP Chairman Michael Steele touting the party’s "Seniors’ Bill of Rights," which we said last week is a mixture of false, true and misleading claims. Steele – continuing in the same vein – is shown urging President Obama to "change his mind" about making "cuts to Medicare," "ration[ing] health... Click to Read the Full Post
Summary The Republican National Committee this week posted a “Health Care Bill of Rights for Seniors,” which RNC Chairman Michael Steele and others have taken to the airwaves to publicize. It contains a number of claims we’ve seen and criticized before, but also contains one new one that has some truth to it, and another fresh one that has very little. The RNC says that cuts proposed by Democrats "threaten millions of seniors with being forced from their current Medicare Advantage... Click to Read the Full Post
Summary Leading Republicans are claiming that President Obama’s proposal to curb greenhouse gas emissions would cost households as much as $3,100 per year. The Republican National Committee calls it a "massive national energy tax." But the $3,100 figure is a misrepresentation of both Obama’s proposal and the study from which the number is derived. Republicans say they base their figure on a study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. But one of the authors says that... Click to Read the Full Post
In my 33 years of covering Washington and national politics, I’ve had some of the best jobs in American journalism — including the development of ‘adwatch’ and ‘factcheck’ stories for CNN. And with the launch today of FactCheck.org I hope to continue my professional lucky streak. This is going to be a fun job — and somebody has to do it. There already have been lots of dubious factual claims and outright falsehoods tossed around in the Presidential campaign:... Click to Read the Full Post
