The FactCheck Wire

Another Abortion Falsehood from Obama’s ‘Truth Team’

The Obama campaign is falsely accusing the Republican Party’s platform of calling for banning abortions even in cases of rape or incest. That’s not true. The 2012 platform is silent on exceptions — leaving that decision up to Congress and the states — just as it was in 2008 and …
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NRCC Taxes Logic in North Carolina House Race

A Democratic congressman who has reliably supported extending the Bush tax cuts is now being attacked by a GOP TV spot claiming he “voted for higher taxes on Social Security, small businesses, middle-class families, even marriage.” All those claims are false or, in the case of Social Security, misleading. The …
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Outdated Attacks on Ryan

The Obama campaign points to old proposals by Rep. Paul Ryan in saying that Mitt Romney would pay “less than 1 percent in taxes” under Ryan’s plan and that seniors would pay $6,000 more for Medicare. Ryan’s 2010 budget proposal would have eliminated capital gains and dividend taxes — which …
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Crossroads Changes Plane False Attack

After yanking an ad with a false claim off the air in North Dakota, Crossroads GPS is back with an amended version that is technically accurate, but still grossly misleading. The original ad claimed that Democratic Senate candidate Heidi Heitkamp “spent taxpayer dollars on private planes” while she was the …
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Pro-Romney Super PAC Twists Obama’s Words

A pro-Romney TV ad shows President Obama saying, “we tried our plan and it worked.” That twists his words way out of context. He was referring to his proposal to cut the deficit using both tax increases and spending cuts, like President Clinton. Obama wasn’t talking about past job creation …
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Romney Hijacks Credibility

A new Mitt Romney campaign ad passes off opinions of a former speechwriter for President George W. Bush as though they were from a newspaper’s reporters or editors. It’s a political trick used by both sides: hijacking a news organization’s credibility. In this example, the Romney ad attacks President Obama’s …
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Obama’s ‘Boss’ Baloney

The Obama campaign strikes another low blow with a TV spot accusing Mitt Romney of “personally” approving a notoriously abusive tax-avoidance scheme and suggesting he may have paid “zero” tax. That’s badly misleading. It wasn’t Romney who was avoiding taxes, it was Marriott Corp. And there’s no evidence to support …
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Rush’s Ruse in Missouri

In a campaign-funded radio ad to Missouri voters, Rush Limbaugh claimed the state’s lieutenant governor “banned taxpayer-funded travel for politicians” when he led the state Senate. Not really. Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder, who is Limbaugh’s friend, spearheaded a moratorium on paying travel expenses for state senators, not all “politicians.” The ban affected …
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Does Obama’s Plan ‘Gut Welfare Reform’?

A Mitt Romney TV ad claims the Obama administration has adopted “a plan to gut welfare reform by dropping work requirements.” The plan does neither of those things. Work requirements are not simply being “dropped.” States may now change the requirements — revising, adding or eliminating them — as part …
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Is Romney to Blame for Cancer Death?

A grieving widower in a new pro-Obama TV spot says his wife contracted cancer and died “a short time after” Mitt Romney closed the steel plant that employed him and left “my family” without health coverage. That’s not quite so. We find this ad from Priorities USA Action to be misleading …
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