The Biden-Ryan debate was marked by some spirited claims that didn’t always match the facts. Ryan said Obama’s proposal to let tax rates rise for high-income individuals would “tax about 53 percent of small-business income.” Wrong. Ryan is counting …
For more than a year, we’ve been pointing out on a regular basis how President Obama, his allies and his critics all misuse or even fabricate statistics to give voters a skewed picture of reality. This time we’ll just offer the accurate numbers. Here — in a graphic …
We found exaggerations and false claims flying thick and fast during the first debate between President Obama and his Republican challenger, Mitt Romney. Obama accused Romney of proposing a $5 trillion tax cut. Not true. Romney proposes to offset his rate cuts …
It’s the oldest form of political communication. Before there was Twitter or Facebook, before there were 30-second television ads, or super PACs, or even radio or newspapers — there was the stump speech. Ancient Greek politicians spoke directly to citizens …
The Romney campaign crams two howling falsehoods into a very few words:
It accuses President Obama of being personally responsible for actions by the Federal Reserve Board, which is independent.
It claims Obama is “spending your tax dollars” in the Fed’s latest move to buy mortgage-backed securities, when in fact the Fed is turning a big profit for the Treasury, reducing the deficit.
Romney campaign manager Matt Rhoades committed both these whoppers in an appeal for donations that was emailed Sept.
Mitt Romney claims the Obama administration issued an “apology for American values” after U.S. embassies were attacked. Not true. Romney refers to a statement issued before mobs attacked either in Egypt or Libya, and faults U.S. diplomats for failing to condemn actions that hadn’t yet happened.
Furthermore, the word “sorry” or “apologize” doesn’t appear in the statement. Under the headline, “U.S. Embassy Condemns Religious Incitement,” the embassy in Cairo said, “Respect for religious beliefs is a cornerstone of American democracy.”
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Former President Bill Clinton’s stem-winding nomination speech was a fact-checker’s nightmare: lots of effort required to run down his many statistics and factual claims, producing little for us to write about.
Republicans will find plenty of Clinton’s scorching opinions objectionable. But with few exceptions, we found his stats checked out.
Overselling ‘Obamacare’
The worst we could fault him for was a suggestion that President Obama’s Affordable Care Act was responsible for bringing down the rate of increase in health care spending,
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — We heard a number of dubious or misleading claims on the first night of the Democratic National Convention:
The keynote speaker and others claimed the Republican presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, would raise taxes on the “middle class.” He has promised he won’t. Democrats base their claim on a study that doesn’t necessarily lead to that conclusion.
The keynote speaker, San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro, also said there have been 4.5 million “new jobs”
TAMPA, Fla. — On the first day of the Republican convention — marked by a delegate vote making former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney the party’s official nominee for president — we’re already hearing a lot of exaggerated, misleading or downright false claims that we’ve heard before.
The theme of the day centered on repeated misrepresentations of a quote from President Obama. From the various speakers we also heard:
A misleading statistic about women’s job losses that has grown so stale it is now wholly false.
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 in previous presidential election years.
To make matters worse, the latest falsehood comes from the president’s “Truth Team.” An Aug. 20 posting on the “Truth Team’s”