Dear readers:
For three years running, we have been voted the best political site on the Web in the annual Webby Awards competition. These awards, which have been called the Oscars of the Internet, represent a welcome show of support for our mission: holding politicians accountable for factual accuracy.
We’d love to keep our streak going — hence this message. The Webby Awards have two segments: the judges’ award and the People’s Voice prize. The latter is where you come in.
Year: 2010
The Bailout Bill?
Does the financial regulatory bill put an end to taxpayer-funded bailouts? Or does it "institutionalize" them? Viewers of the Sunday political talk shows and recent C-SPAN clips from the Senate floor might well be wondering, as Democrats (the "end of bailouts" crowd) and some Republicans (the "institutionalize" camp) have made these contradictory claims.
No piece of legislation can guarantee that a future Congress won’t allow the federal government to prop up a failing financial institution. But claims that this bill makes taxpayer-funded bailouts a permanent fixture are misleading,
Another False Tax Attack (And One That’s Just Deceptive)
There they go again.
Earlier this month, we called out Democrats for falsely accusing a Republican House candidate in Hawaii of pledging to protect tax breaks for sending jobs overseas. All he did was sign a pledge not to raise taxes. Now a Democratic candidate is making the same false claim against his opponent in another special election in Pennsylvania.
For Democrats, misrepresenting an opponent’s anti-tax position as an anti-jobs position is getting to be a bad habit.
Sunday Replay
During his first appearance on CBS’ "Face the Nation" on April 18, Republican Sen. Scott Brown of Massachusetts claimed that the financial regulatory bill could potentially cost insurance companies in his state 25,000 to 35,000 jobs. But the freshman senator has failed to provide any support for the claim, and we have been unable to find any elsewhere.
Brown didn’t provide the source of the estimate when host Bob Schieffer inquired about it. And our calls to the senator’s office haven’t been returned.
FactCheck Mailbag, Week of April 13-April 19
This week, readers sent us comments about religious exemptions, fine print and colloquial language.
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.
More Malarkey About Health Care
We’ve seldom seen a piece of legislation so widely misrepresented, and misunderstood, as the new health care law. We stopped counting the number of articles and items we turned out on the subject after the total reached 100. Some of that is understandable. The debate went on for more than …
Tax Breaks and a ‘Private Army’
In episode 7 of our podcast, we look at a Democratic ad that falsely claims a Republican House candidate pledged to protect tax breaks for companies that send jobs abroad. We also tell listeners about the political involvement of Massey Energy, the company involved in the West Virginia mining disaster, and we explain the truth behind Internet rumors claiming the health care law gives the president a “private army.”
(Click here to listen to the podcast.
Some ‘Climategate’ Conclusions
In November 2009, private e-mails from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia were stolen and made public. Climate change disbelievers called it “Climategate,” saying that the e-mails proved collusion and conspiracies that would discredit man-made global warming. We found that there was no solid evidence of wrongdoing in the e-mails, but noted that a detailed investigation by the university was underway.
As it turns out, this investigation came to more or less the same conclusion we did.
Tussling Over TARP
A recent TV ad from Arkansas Lt. Governor Bill Halter claims that Democratic Sen. Blanche Lincoln "says she voted against bailing out Wall Street." That’s not what Lincoln said. The two are campaigning in the Democratic primary for the Senate.
Halter’s ad refers to a Lincoln campaign ad from March in which she said she has voted against "giving more money to Wall Street."
Lincoln never denied voting in favor of the 2008 Troubled Assets Relief Program,
California Dreaming
Steve Poizner, who’s running in California’s GOP gubernatorial primary, has launched an attack on front-runner Meg Whitman, accusing her of not being sufficiently Republican. But several of his claims are off the mark. Whitman has never voiced support for “amnesty” for illegal aliens, however the term is defined …