On “Meet the Press” on June 28, former presidential candidate and Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney falsely claimed that President Obama had called for a “single-payer” health care system on the campaign trail:
Romney: President Obama, when he was campaigning, said he wanted a single-payer system.
We debunked this falsehood when Sen. John McCain said it during the third presidential debate. McCain claimed that “as he said, his object is a single payer system.” But as a presidential candidate,
We received a number of e-mails after we said, in our article "Pushing for a Public Plan," that "the average monthly payment for workers with employer-sponsored coverage is … $280 for a family policy." It seems that a lot of you weren’t satisfied with the finding, which is from the Kaiser Family Foundation.
A sampling:
My Family policy with BCBS had a $500 [deductible] for all 3 members and my bill was $800 a month. We now have a group policy for all 5 members of our 2 optical shops,
Earlier this week we wrote about a television ad from Americans United for Change and found it to be misleading. The ad claimed that "a new poll shows that 62 percent of Americans support" President Obama’s "plan to reform health care." Americans United for Change disagreed with our analysis and Deputy Communications Director Lauren Weiner sent us an e-mail to say:
Weiner: Our "62%" ad is based on the Diageo/Hotline poll which asked voters if they supported Congress and the President enacting major overhaul of health care.
According to a new report issued by the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office, the United States is the source for a “large proportion of the firearms fueling Mexican drug violence”:
GAO, June 2009: Available evidence indicates a large proportion of the firearms fueling Mexican drug violence originated in the United States, including a growing number of increasingly lethal weapons. While it is impossible to know how many firearms are illegally trafficked into Mexico in a given year,
The Wall Street Journal reports that a new study by the Government Accountability Office says "most firearms recovered in drug violence in Mexico come from the U.S." The WSJ, which obtained and reviewed a draft of the study, says the full report is to be released later today.
This news might seem to confirm the claims made by President Barack Obama and others that "more than 90 percent of the guns recovered in Mexico come from the United States."
The liberal advocacy group Americans United for Change has released a new ad backing President Obama’s "plan to reform health care." According to the ad, "a new poll shows that 62 percent of Americans support" the plan.
But that’s misleading. The poll in question, conducted for Diageo/Hotline, didn’t ask respondents about a specific plan. Rather, it asked whether they supported or opposed a "major overhaul" of the health care system, without any specifics.
Diageo/Hotline Question: Do you support or oppose Congress and the President enacting a major overhaul of the U.S.
The Supreme Court’s June 8 decision in Caperton v. Massey established that there is such a thing as too much money, at least when it comes to campaign support for a judge who is hearing a case involving the supporter. And $3 million is definitely over the line, according to the majority opinion by Justice Anthony Kennedy in the landmark 5-4 decision.
Excessive campaign contributions to or in support of a judicial candidate can subvert the due process clause of the Constitution,
Ever since Chrysler announced that it wanted to shed 789 of its 3,188 nationwide dealerships, speculation and outright accusations have circulated to the effect that Republican donors were being singled out. The list of dealers slated for closing contained some who had given to Republican candidates, and far fewer who had given to Democrats. One blogger’s early tabulation, based on the first five pages of the 40-page list of closed dealers, showed $120,000 had been given to GOP candidates and $34,350 to Democratic candidates in 2004 and 2008 (exclusive of presidential candidates).
President Obama ticked off some accomplishments of the Islamic world during his speech in Cairo on June 4. Namely, he said:
Obama: It was innovation in Muslim communities that developed the order of algebra; our magnetic compass and tools of navigation; our mastery of pens and printing; our understanding of how disease spreads and how it can be healed.
Was he right? Well, he was more careful in his language than when he claimed this winter that the U.S.
We’ve updated our Ask FactCheck item on Sonia Sotomayor and gun rights yet again. This time it’s to reflect the fact that the National Rifle Association has filed a cert petition asking the Supreme Court to hear its case challenging Chicago’s gun laws (which it lost this week in the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals). The NRA asks the court specifically to decide the question of whether or not the Second Amendment applies to state and local governments.