Q: Does McCain have a perfect voting record according to veterans’ groups?
A: Well, the two groups McCain cited at a recent town hall event don’t even dole out ratings. He has received awards from those groups, however.
Stories by Justin Bank
McCain’s Power Outage
Summary
McCain has spent the week focusing on energy policy, making some surprising, and inaccurate, statements.
Among them:
He said that ending a moratorium on offshore oil drilling "would be very helpful in the short term in resolving our energy crisis." But according to a government report, offshore oil wouldn’t have much of an impact on supply or prices until 2030. Update, June 24: At a town hall event on June 23, McCain didn’t claim that offshore drilling would lower prices in the short term,
Letter by a Florida Teacher
Q: Is a letter from an anonymous teacher about illegal immigrants getting school grants true?
A: No. It cobbles together misleading statements to give the impression that illegal immigrants are receiving perks from taxpayers, when, in fact, they are not.
Nonsense in New Mexico
Rep. Steve Pearce’s campaign and an independent anti-abortion group both have attacked Rep. Heather Wilson in the hotly contested race to be the Republican nominee for an open New Mexico Senate seat. But Pearce and the group run afoul of the facts. A mailer from Pearce claims that Wilson “voted for cloning that would create human embryos specifically to be destroyed for scientific research.” Actually, she voted to make it illegal to clone humans for reproductive purposes; the bill did not address embryos to be used for research, as anti-abortion groups wanted. It’s simply false to say she voted for som
Presidential Eligibility and the Line of Succession
Q: Can a person who is not constitutionally eligible for the office of president be in the line of succession?
A: Such a person can serve in an office that is in the line of succession, but he or she can't become president and would get skipped over if the presidency was vacated.
Mudslinging in Mississippi
Accuracy apparently hasn’t been the top priority of the groups flinging ads onto the airwaves in Mississippi’s 1st congressional district, where voters will pick a new House member in a special election on Tuesday. Here’s what we found in this preview of the tone and types of tactics we might expect to see in other races later this year
McCain’s Record on Earmarks
Q: Has McCain ever made any earmarks?
A: Not for fiscal year 2008 and never explicitly, though over the course of his career, there are several that might deserve the label.
Gas Price Fixes That Won’t
Hillary Clinton and John McCain are offering overburdened motorists a federal “gasoline tax holiday.” But economists say that the proposal is unlikely to actually lower the price of gasoline. McCain’s plan would essentially give federal funds to oil refineries, while the net effect of Clinton’s plan probably wouldn’t be much at all, although it would create a lot of new administrative work.
V.P. Term Limits
Q: Are there term limits for the vice president like there are for the president? Can they only serve two terms, too?
A: No. In theory, someone could hold the office indefinitely, but no one has actually served more than two full terms.
Replacing the Vice President
Q: If a vice president assumes the presidency, who becomes vice president?
A: The new president appoints someone to fill his or her old position, subject to congressional approval.