Q: Did the government buy 79 percent of all vehicles sold by General Motors in June?
A: No, that viral rumor is false. All fleet customers combined — including rental car companies and state and local governments — accounted for less than one-third of GM’s June sales.
After yanking an ad with a false claim off the air in North Dakota, Crossroads GPS is back with an amended version that is technically accurate, but still grossly misleading.
The original ad claimed that Democratic Senate candidate Heidi Heitkamp “spent taxpayer dollars on private planes” while she was the state’s attorney general. That wasn’t true. The planes were donated by the federal government.
The amended version, which started running Aug. 10, says she “allowed staff to fly a taxpayer-funded plane.”
A Democratic robocall in Iowa accuses GOP Rep. Tom Latham of “looking out for himself” by profiting from legislation he actually opposed.
The Des Moines Register reports that the call from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee charges Latham with “only looking out for himself, not the middle class,” for having stock in a bank holding company that took Troubled Asset Relief Program funds in 2009.
The problem with that claim is that Latham actually voted against the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act that created TARP back in 2008.
Q: Does the Obama administration intend to “force gun control and a complete ban on all weapons for U.S. citizens” through a United Nations treaty?
A: No. The administration plans to negotiate a treaty to regulate the international export and import of weapons. It says that it won’t support any treaty that regulates the domestic transfer or ownership of weapons, or that infringes on the Second Amendment.
Q: Did Barack and Michelle Obama “surrender” their law licenses to avoid ethics charges?
A: No. A court official confirms that no public disciplinary proceeding has ever been brought against either of them, contrary to a false Internet rumor. By voluntarily inactivating their licenses, they avoid a requirement to take continuing education classes and pay hundreds of dollars in annual fees. Both could practice law again if they chose to do so.
The campaign of Republican Senate candidate Josh Mandel of Ohio is fighting back against “negative ads” from Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown with one of its very own. But it’s one that makes several inaccurate claims:
The ad claims that Brown “gave huge bonuses to executives.” That’s not true. Brown actually voted to ban bonuses to top executives at companies that received bank bailout funds, but that prohibition was removed in House-Senate negotiations before the final stimulus bill became law.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s latest onslaught of television ads continues to miseducate voters about the potential impact of the health care law.
Once again, FactCheck.org has been awarded the Webby for best politics website by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences.
A pro-Obama TV ad says that “big oil” pledged $200 million to help Mitt Romney, making him the industry’s “$200 million man.” But that’s a pretty slippery claim. The fact is that there is no evidence that truly big oil companies like BP, Exxon Mobil Corp. and Chevron Corp. are behind the money in question. Rather, it’s a funding goal of the Koch brothers, the libertarian billionaires whose diversified corporation has fingers in lumber, commodity trading,
The Republican primary for Sen. Richard Lugar’s seat is apparently too close for comfort. Both Lugar’s campaign and the American Action Network are airing misleading attack ads against Indiana Treasurer Richard Mourdock, the senator’s challenger for the nomination. The ads strain the facts to make Mourdock look like a tax cheat who makes bad investments and does not show up for work.
The AAN ad claims that “Hoosier pensions and other funds lost millions” because of Mourdock’s “big bet on junk bonds.”