Q: Has Obama’s birth certificate been disclosed?
A: Yes. His campaign made a copy public after speculation by conservative bloggers that he might not be a “natural-born citizen.”
Stories by Brooks Jackson
Director Emeritus, FactCheck.org
McCain and the Gas Tax
Q: Do the poor drive farther than the rich, as McCain claims?
A: No. McCain is wrong when he claims repeatedly that low-income people drive more. In fact, the affluent drive twice as many miles.
Clinton and the Popular Vote
Q: Did Clinton win the popular vote?
A: Obama won more votes unless you count Michigan, where he wasn’t on the ballot.
Clinton Spins Her Donors
The debt-strapped Clinton campaign is appealing for money with an e-mail telling potential donors that polls “consistently” show she would beat McCain in November, and that she’s leading Obama in the popular vote. We find both claims are misleading. A number of recent polls actually show Clinton tied with McCain, or even trailing. For most of 2008, polls have shown McCain ahead.
Diesel Fuel and Gasoline Costs
Q: Why does diesel fuel cost more than gasoline?
A: The main reason is rising global demand, but new environmental restrictions and higher federal taxes also are factors.
Top 1%: What They Make and Pay
Q: What percent of taxes does the top 1 percent pay and what percent of the income do they make?
A: The top 1 percent of all households got 18 percent of all personal income and paid nearly 28 percent of all federal taxes in 2005, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The top 1 percent now pay a significantly larger share of taxes than before President Bush’s tax cuts,
Impact of Capital Gains Tax on the Middle Class
Q: Would raising the capital gains tax rate hit the middle class?
A: More than 80 percent of all capital gains income went to those making more than $200,000 a year in 2006. Very few making under $50,000 would be affected by any increase in the top capital gains rate.
“Reprehensible Misrepresentation”
Summary
Conservative activist Floyd G. Brown, who had a hand in the 1988 "Willie Horton" attack ad, is seeking funds to show a new spot accusing Obama of being "weak" on Chicago gang killers in 2001 and suggesting he’d be weak on terrorism, too. Brown bases the claim on Obama’s vote against a bill to make gang killers automatically eligible for the death penalty.
We find that the ad misses the mark. The anti-gang activist who sponsored the death-penalty bill tells FactCheck.org that she doesn’t consider Obama weak on crime despite his opposition to her proposal.
Counting Obama’s and Clinton’s Delegates
Q: Which is the correct delegate count for Obama and Clinton?
A: There’s no official count. Different news organizations and Web sites come up with slightly different estimates because the job is complex and involves a bit of guesswork.
Obama and the National Anthem
Q: Did Obama say the National Anthem conveys a “war-like message” and should be swapped for something such as “I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing”?
A: No. That’s false. The quote was one conservative writer’s idea of a joke, which has been picked up and repeated as though it were true in a chain e-mail.