Yesterday President Barack Obama accepted the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway, and made some remarks that could use a bit of context and explanation.
Obama said that "billions have been lifted from poverty." Though he didn’t provide a time frame, he was discussing the effects of the United Nations and the Marshall Plan, both of which began in the late 1940s. We haven’t been able to find any reliable statistics that go back that far,
We’re in the Record
Saturday’s Senate debate on the health care bill included a few mentions of yours truly, FactCheck.org.
Our work was cited on Dec. 2 by Sen. John McCain, who quoted from our Oct. 20, 2008, article. Three days later our article made the Congressional Record yet again. This time, it was prompted by Sen. John Kerry who said this on the Senate floor, quoting from a Wall Street Journal news story from last year:
Kerry,
Extras: Allentown, Palin, E-mails
This round-up of political tidbits includes an ad pegged to the president’s visit to Allentown, Sarah Palin on Obama’s birth certificate and more chain e-mails.
Working Where in Allentown?
When President Barack Obama traveled to Allentown, Pa., Friday morning to discuss job creation, the Republican National Committee welcomed him with a radio spot questioning the effectiveness of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
Unfortunately, by Friday the ad was a day late and a few hundred thousand jobs short.
Robocall Rumble
It’s the battle of the voice mail messages.
First, Sen. John McCain launched a robocall this week, claiming that spending cuts to Medicare in the Senate health care bill would eliminate “vital Medicare coverage for our seniors” and promoting his amendment to strip the bill of all those Medicare cuts. He recorded a similar call for the National Republican Senatorial Committee. Thursday night, the liberal group Americans United for Change launched a counter-call, which tells recipients: "You may have received a political call that tries to frighten seniors —
McCain Robocall Sounds Familiar
Last year, Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign proposed cuts to Medicare spending to finance his health care overhaul proposal. This year, Senate Democrats have proposed cuts to Medicare spending to finance their health care overhaul proposal.
Last year, the Obama camp promptly attacked McCain, falsely claiming, as we pointed out, that the Republican was going to reduce benefits and that seniors would "receive fewer services, and get lower quality care." This year (this week, in fact),
Public Financing Comes to Wisconsin Supreme Court
Prompted by escalating campaign spending and the increasing use of attack ads, Wisconsin state legislators and Gov. Jim Doyle have enacted a bill to provide public financing for the Supreme Court’s candidates.
Would-be justices would qualify for the funds by agreeing to limit spending and by raising small sums totaling between $5,000 and $15,000 from 1,000 different contributors. They could then receive up to $100,000 for a primary race and up to $300,000 for a general election – which,
Stimulus Jobs, Re-revisited
Reports from journalists and the Government Accountability Office last month about problems with the data on Recovery.gov cast doubt on the site’s claim that more than 640,000 jobs had been created or saved by the Obama administration’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Meanwhile Obama upped the ante, putting the figure at more than 1 million. On Nov. 12, for example, in announcing this month’s jobs summit, he said that the stimulus had “created and saved more than a million jobs.”
New Ad, Old Claims
Conservatives for Patients’ Rights is out with a new ad, airing on CNN and Fox News, that repeats a few of the group’s claims about a federal health insurance plan: that it could prevent people from keeping their doctor or their health insurance.
The narrator of the ad says that 14 senators’ votes "on the government-run public option plan could decide" whether you keep your doctor or your insurance plan. The "could" makes the claim squishy, but the implication is that the inclusion of a so-called public option in the health care bill will put the public’s ability to keep their current doctors in jeopardy.
Extras: Gore, Dogs, Health Insurance and Bunkmail
Our pre-Thanksgiving round-up of bits and pieces of political bunk includes Al Gore, a fancy new dog park and chain e-mails that refuse to die.
Gore’s too hot
Al Gore overstated a key fact about geothermal energy during a recent appearance on "The Tonight Show":
Gore, Nov. 13: Two kilometers or so down in most places there are these incredibly hot rocks, because the interior of the earth is extremely hot — several million degrees.
Gimmicks in the Health Care Bill?
Democrats in Congress have been pleased with the Congressional Budget Office’s findings that both the House and Senate health care bills would reduce the deficit over 10 years. But is that assessment due to some accounting trickery in the bills?
The conservative Employment Policies Institute is airing an ad on cable news networks featuring June O’Neill, former director of the CBO in the mid- to late ’90s, who says that "some politicians are using accounting gimmicks to hide the cost"