This Republican talking point aims to blame President Obama for more than $1 trillion in automatic, across-the-board cuts in domestic and defense spending that — without action by Congress — are scheduled to take effect on March 1. But the reality is that the pending cuts would not be possible had both Democrats and Republicans not supported the legislation that included them. …
Stories by D'Angelo Gore
‘Death Spiral’ States?
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.”
Hawaiian Whopper
An ad by Republican Senate candidate Linda Lingle in the Aloha State is telling a real whopper — about us.
Her ad says that FactCheck.org rated a claim made by her opponent as “the worst political deception of the year,” and it shows our logo with a headline reading “Whopper of the Year.” The fact is we have never run a headline saying that, and have never singled out any one political falsehood as the worst.
DCCC’s Troop Pay Deception
Republican Rep. Jeff Denham of California is suing the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee over an ad accusing him of turning his back on pay for troops while voting to guarantee his own pay. We find the ad’s claims to be distorted and misleading.
The ad says Denham “voted against a measure to guarantee our troops would still receive their pay” had the government shut down in 2011 during the debt-ceiling showdown. Actually, Denham voted in favor of a Republican troop-funding bill,
Talking Tax Breaks for Offshoring
NRCC Reaching with Robocall
GM’s Government Sales
Crossroads Changes Plane False Attack
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.”
DCCC Calls Latham Out on TARP
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.
Still No International Gun Ban Treaty
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.