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Q: Does Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s husband, Richard Blum, own a company that has an exclusive contract to sell United States Postal Service property?
A: Blum has an interest in the CBRE Group, which won a competitive contract to sell postal facilities. He is its board chairman and owns an investment firm that holds less than 5 percent of its stock.
Q: Has the Pentagon recently declared that sharing one’s faith is punishable by court-martial?
A: No. The Pentagon merely restated its long-held policy that military members can “share their faith (evangelize)” but “not force unwanted, intrusive attempts to convert others … to one’s beliefs (proselytization).”
Is it true that there are bills in Congress that would exempt members and their staffs and families from buying into “Obamacare”?
Did Sen. Dianne Feinstein say all military veterans are mentally ill and should not be allowed to own guns?
Q: Did the IRS say that the cheapest health insurance plan under the federal health care law would cost $20,000 per family?
A: No. The IRS used $20,000 in a hypothetical example to illustrate how it will calculate the tax penalty for a family that fails to obtain health coverage as required by law. Treasury says the figure “is not an estimate of premiums.”
Q: Is it true that 85 percent of all the children killed by guns in the world are killed in the United States?
A: No. This statistic, misused by the husband of former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, refers to a study of 23 high-income countries in 2003 that made up less than 14 percent of the world’s population. A coauthor of that study says the percentage of children killed in the world who lived in the U.S.
Q: Is it true that there were more votes than voters in Wood County, Ohio, and St. Lucie County, Fla., and that Obama lost every state with photo ID laws?
A: No. A viral email that makes those claims is bogus. It fabricates Ohio and Florida results. Also, Obama won four of the 11 states with photo ID laws.
Q: Do 11 states now have more people on welfare than they have employed?
A: A viral email making this claim is off base. It distorts a Forbes article that compares private-sector workers with those “dependent on the government,” including government workers and pensioners, and Medicaid recipients — not just “people on welfare.”
Q: Is the Obama administration attempting to eliminate private 401(k)s and IRAs and create a “national retirement system”?
A: No. Obama endorses a proposal that would require businesses without retirement plans to establish private IRAs for their employees and deposit a percentage of wages into the accounts. Employees could opt out.
Q: Did the Department of Homeland Security create a “standing army of government youth” known as FEMA Corps.
A: No. FEMA Corps is a civilian operation within AmeriCorps, a federal community service program. FEMA Corps prepares and responds to disasters. Its members, ages 18 to 24, carry no weapons.