FactCheck.org Author: Robert Farley

Stimulus Money for Jobs Overseas?

May 2, 2012

An ad from the conservative Americans for Prosperity distorts the truth about stimulus money for “green jobs” going overseas. The ad, titled “Wasteful Spending,” introduces some new wrinkles to this well-used line of attack.
According to the ad, the stimulus included:

“$1.2 billion to a solar company that’s building a plant in Mexico.” Actually, the loans were to finance a solar ranch built and operated in California. It’s true that the company that got the loans also recently opened a solar-panel manufacturing plant in Mexico,

The Whole Truth in Wisconsin Air Wars

April 26, 2012

If using partial truths in political advertising is an art, then ads in the Wisconsin recall election for governor should be in a museum. Former Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk and Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett are among the Democrats seeking to unseat Republican Gov. Scott Walker …

Warren: GE Pays No Taxes

April 24, 2012

Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren evoked corporate tax punching bag General Electric Co. in a recent ad, claiming the corporate giant pays “nothing – zero – in taxes” to make a point about misplaced values. But that’s not accurate.
We should preface this by saying that we are wading into a heated media debate about the amount of taxes paid by GE, and the most crucial number — the amount paid in corporate income tax —

Romney Misfires with EPA Anecdote

April 17, 2012

Mitt Romney railed against the “Obama EPA” and “how the Obama government interferes with personal freedom” — using as his example an EPA action taken in 2007, under President George W. Bush.
Furthermore, it was a Republican-nominated federal judge who made the initial ruling — in EPA’s favor — that was overturned recently by the Supreme Court.
At issue was a longstanding Environmental Protection Agency precedent regarding a property owner’s right to challenge an EPA compliance order in court,

Obama’s ‘War on Women’?

April 12, 2012

On the campaign trail, Mitt Romney has been hammering a statistic that “over 92 percent of the jobs lost under this president were lost by women,” evidence, he says, that President Obama’s policies amount to a “war on women.” Romney’s statistic is accurate, as far as it goes. But it’s not the whole story.
Looking back at the whole recession, men have lost many more jobs than women. But the biggest job losses for men came earlier in the recession,

Romney Attacks on Santorum’s Turf

April 9, 2012

Mitt Romney has put the brakes on a TV ad attacking Rick Santorum — one that highlights the blistering defeat the former Pennsylvania senator suffered in his 2006 reelection bid — as Santorum spends time with his ailing daughter. But with Santorum’s people announcing plans to head back to the campaign trail, expect the ad running in Santorum’s home state to resume as well.
The ad reminds Pennsylvanians of the trouncing Santorum got in his last election in 2006.

Deja Vu: The Latest Attacks from Santorum

April 3, 2012

The latest TV spot from Rick Santorum’s campaign recycles a veritable “Best Of” list of misleading claims about Mitt Romney’s record and positions.
Regular readers of FactCheck.org may recognize some claims as ones we have tagged as misleading, repeatedly. The ad says Romney’s health care law “included $50 abortions and killed thousands of jobs.” It says Romney supported “job-killing cap and trade.” And it asks viewers to believe that Romney “stuck taxpayers with a 1 billion dollar shortfall”

Does Santorum Care About Unemployment?

March 27, 2012

A new ad from the pro-Mitt Romney super PAC Restore Our Future plays a game of gotcha politics. It grabs a comment from Rick Santorum — “I don’t care what the unemployment rate’s going to be” — out of context to frame an attack on the former senator’s record on economic issues.
In context, Santorum was making the point that the election was about something bigger — more “foundational” — than just the economy, that it was about less government intrusion into the private sector.

Obama Wanted Higher Gasoline Prices?

March 23, 2012

Republican presidential candidates Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich have repeatedly lifted several quotes out of context to allege that President Barack Obama and his administration actually wanted to drive up the price of gasoline, and have succeeded.

Gingrich said Obama wants gasoline prices to get to the European levels of $9 or $10 a gallon, but that “he just wants it to be gradual.” But that’s not what Obama said. Rather, when asked in 2008 about then-$4 per gallon gasoline prices,

Santorum: English Before Statehood

March 19, 2012

Rick Santorum greatly overreached when he claimed that Congress required “English be the principal language and that it be taught and spoken universally” in several Southwest territories, Oklahoma and Hawaii as preconditions for them attaining statehood.
Congress did require in some cases that new states conduct government business in English, or that public schools teach in English. But those were the limits of the requirements. There were no requirements that English be the “principal language” or that it be “spoken universally.”