White House Senior Adviser David Axelrod incorrectly claimed that Republican Scott Brown “didn’t run one ad on health care in the entire campaign” against Democrat Martha Coakley. In fact, a Brown campaign TV spot attacking health care legislation ran heavily in the days before Tuesday’s Senate election in Massachusetts.
Axelrod, in an appearance alongside White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs on MSNBC’s “The Daily Rundown” on Wednesday, was trying to play down the role of the health care issue in Brown’s upset victory.
Month: January 2010
FactCheck Mailbag, Week of Jan. 12-Jan. 18
This week, readers sent us comments on a FactCheck curriculum, the Massachusetts race and global cooling. In the FactCheck Mailbag, we feature some of the e-mail we receive.
Readers can send comments to editor@factcheck.org. Letters may be edited for length.
Congress Exempt from Health Bill?
Q: Does the health care bill specifically exempt members of Congress and their staffs from its provisions?
A: No. This twisted claim is based on misrepresentations of the House and Senate bills, neither of which exempts lawmakers.
January 20, 2010
There is no accepted method of predicting when, where and how great in magnitude an earthquake will occur.
Source: U.S. Geological Survey
More Mischief in Massachusetts
Last week we barely dipped our toe in the torrent of ads blanketing Massachusetts, where voters are going to the polls today to decide who will replace the late Sen. Ted Kennedy: Democrat Martha Coakley or Republican Scott Brown. There have been more since in the close race, too many for us to keep up with.
But we found one single-issue flier sent out by the Massachusetts Democratic Party particularly offensive and off-base. The background of the flier shows blurry images of women on which these words are superimposed: "1,736 women were raped in Massachusetts in 2008.
January 19, 2010
The deadliest recorded earthquake in history killed 830,000 people in Shensi Province, China, in 1556.
Source: U.S. Geological Survey
Clueless ‘Columbo’
Q: What’s up with “Columbo” and his questions for Obama?
A: The interrogator in a chain e-mail gets his facts fouled up and makes false accusations.
January 18, 2010
On Nov. 3, 1983, President Ronald Reagan signed into law a bill declaring that the third Monday of January, starting in 1986, would be recognized as the Martin Luther King, Jr. national holiday.
Source: The King Center
January 17, 2010
Haiti declared its independence from France on Jan. 1, 1804.
Source: CIA World Factbook
January 16, 2010
Thirty-eight percent of Haiti’s 9,035,536 people are aged 14 and younger.
Source: CIA World Factbook