Summary
We've often said that the spin never stops in Washington. And the weeks since Nov. 4 offer further evidence of that.
Consider some of the bogus claims we've debunked just since Election Day:
It's not true that unionized auto workers at Detroit's Big Three make more than $70 an hour, as claimed by some opponents of federal aid.
And no, 3 million workers won't be tossed out of work if aid is not forthcoming,
Q: Would 3 million jobs be lost if U.S. automakers go under?
A: The 3-million-jobs figure is based on doomsday assumptions that are unlikely to materialize. Independent economists put the job loss in the hundreds of thousands if GM and Chrysler go under. Ford has said it can survive on its own for now.
We saw more aggressive fact-checking by journalists in this election than ever before. Unfortunately, as a post-election Annenberg Public Policy Center poll confirms, millions of voters were bamboozled anyway.
More than half of U.S. adults (52 percent) said the claim that Sen. Barack Obama’s tax plan would raise taxes on most small businesses is truthful, when in fact only a small percentage would see any increase.
More than two in five (42.3 percent) found truth in the claim that Sen.
Q: Are congressional Democrats talking about confiscating IRA and 401(k) investment accounts?
A: No. There’s no plan to seize these accounts. One House witness at a committee hearing proposed to allow some people to trade their old accounts for a new type that would be less risky.
FactCheck.org’s subscribers report to us that they find our articles clear, helpful and unbiased.
More than 15,000 who responded to an online survey invitation also told us that they are exceptionally well educated. More than one in three hold an advanced degree, and 84 percent have at least some college education. The average age is 55, and 98 percent reported that they voted in this election. One in 10 is a teacher, and nearly 2 percent are journalists, most of whom say they find our articles useful when preparing their own news reports.
Q: Is Obama planning a Gestapo-like “civilian national security force”?
A: This false claim is a badly distorted version of Obama’s call for doubling the Peace Corps, creating volunteer networks and increasing the size of the Foreign Service.
The Obama-Biden campaign’s closing arguments have included some oft-repeated but still unlikely promises. Sen. John McCain and Gov. Sarah Palin, meanwhile, served up some new misleading claims in the waning days of the campaign. We examine their final pitch to voters in another article, “Closing Arguments: McCain.” Here we take one last look at Sen. Barack Obama’s claims.
Of all the nutty rumors, baseless conspiracy theories and sheer disinformation that we’ve dealt with at FactCheck.org during campaign 2008, perhaps the goofiest is the claim that Barack Obama is not a “natural-born citizen” and therefore not eligible to be president under the constitution.
This claim was first advanced by diehard Hillary Clinton supporters as her campaign for the party’s nomination faded, and has enjoyed a revival among John McCain’s partisans as he fell substantially behind Obama in public opinion polls.
Summary
The liberal group VoteVets.org is running an ad claiming that Republican Sen. Elizabeth Dole "voted against giving our troops" life-saving body armor.
It’s a slightly revised version of an ad the same group ran against four GOP senators in the 2006 election. The claim was false and nasty then, and it’s false and nasty now.
The truth is that there was never a vote to deny body armor to troops, period. Neither of the two funding measures Vote Vets now cites in support of its claim mention body armor specifically,
Summary
The National Rifle Association’s misleading attacks on Obama continue. A new ad shows a terrified woman grabbing a gun after an intruder smashes his way into her home. It accuses Obama of voting repeatedly for a measure that would "make you the criminal" in such cases, and voting to "deny citizens the right of self-protection."
The NRA says the incident depicted is "a true story." Not quite.
The actual 2003 burglary didn’t involve a woman,