So much for a slow news month. August feels like campaign season, with claims on health care coming at us daily. Does the House bill call for mandatory counseling on how to end seniors’ lives sooner? Absolutely not. Will the government be dictating to doctors how to treat their patients? No. Do the bills propose …
Issues: illegal immigrants
Misleading GOP Health Care Claims
Republicans in Washington seem to be shifting into overdrive to keep a health system overhaul from passing Congress before the August recess. Yesterday, July 22, brought two more deceptive assaults (that we know of) on the pending bills, one from Minority Whip Eric Cantor and the other from the top GOP member of the House Immigration Subcommittee, Steve King of Iowa.
Cantor’s is in the form of a video that accuses Obama and the Democrats of being in a “reckless rush”
The ‘Real’ Uninsured
Former Sen. Fred Thompson said on “Meet the Press” that “the 45 million … figure of uninsured is probably about twice the real number of people who can’t afford insurance or don’t have access to it really.” He’s not the only one saying that the number is inflated. We find …
Oklahoma’s Conservativism
Q: Is Oklahoma as defiantly conservative as a chain e-mail says?
A: The state is one of the most Republican in the nation, but the message exaggerates Oklahoma’s laws on religion, immigration and guns.
Social Security for Immigrants and Refugees
Q: Do immigrants and refugees get more in benefits than a retired U.S. citizen gets in Social Security?
A: This is nonsense. The claims propagated by a viral e-mail are not even close to the truth.
Cost of Illegal Immigrants
Q: Do illegal immigrants cost $338.3 billion dollars a year? More than the Iraq war?
A: A chain e-mail that makes this claim is loaded with errors and misleading assertions. Published studies vary widely but put the cost to government at a small fraction of that total.
Stimulus for Illegal Immigrants?
Q: Will 300,000 illegal immigrants get construction jobs through the stimulus package?
A: There’s no way of knowing how many illegal immigrants may or may not end up with a job from stimulus funds. But this inflated estimate comes from conservative groups concerned about the absence of employee verification requirements in the final bill.
Social Security for Illegal Immigrants?
Q: Is Congress about to give Social Security to illegal immigrants?
A: Congress hasn’t voted on any measure to pay benefits to illegal immigrants, and has no plans for any such vote.
A License to Kill
Summary
An upstart group calling itself the "National Republican Trust PAC" mixes a pile of false claims and the image of 9/11 mastermind Mohammed Atta to create one of the sleaziest false TV ads of the campaign.
The spot falsely claims Obama has a "plan" to issue driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants. In fact, Obama has said quite specifically, "I am not proposing that that’s what we do."
The ad implies such licenses would enable terrorist attacks.
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.