As part of his plan to downsize the federal government, Republican Sen. Rick Scott says he wants all federal legislation to “sunset” in five years, and “[i]f a law is worth keeping, Congress can pass it again.” Well, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid were all created by legislation. And now Democrats are saying Republicans want to end those programs.
On Earth Day, President Joe Biden touted his administration’s environmental initiatives, but his rhetoric made efforts to reduce methane emissions and drinking water contamination sound more expansive than they actually are.
In recent speeches, President Joe Biden has been misleadingly taking credit for cutting federal deficits by historic amounts, though most of the reduction in deficits is the result of expiring emergency pandemic spending. Deficits fell between fiscal year 2020 and 2021 far less than initially projected after Biden added to them with more emergency pandemic and infrastructure spending.
The American Red Cross and other blood collectors in the U.S. strongly encourage everyone who is feeling healthy to donate blood, including people who have received a COVID-19 vaccine. But a social media post falsely implies the organization does not use the blood from vaccinated people.
In the crowded Republican primary field for a U.S. Senate seat in Ohio, candidate Mike Gibbons charges in a TV ad that his cohorts have taken his words on taxes “out of context” — but his ad leaves out context and stretches the facts on their positions, too.
A California bill would do away with mandatory investigations of stillbirths. Opponents misleadingly claim it would “legalize infanticide.” The bill would prevent prosecution in cases of “perinatal death due to a pregnancy-related cause.” But authorities would investigate if there were evidence of foul play leading to an infant’s death.
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said that he couldn’t even “imagine a circumstance” where “parents complaining” at a school board meeting would be “labeled as domestic terrorism.” Yet, several Republicans have continued to falsely claim Garland called such parents “terrorists.”
John Wilkes Booth, who assassinated Republican President Abraham Lincoln in 1865, was affiliated with the anti-immigrant Know-Nothing Party and was a supporter of slavery and the Confederacy. Social media posts claim without evidence that Booth was a Democrat.
Republican Mark Walker voted against former President Donald Trump’s first impeachment in 2019, and he was no longer a congressman when the House voted to impeach Trump a second time in 2021. Yet, a misleading TV ad claims Walker, who is running for U.S. Senate in North Carolina, “abandoned” Trump on a vote “to block a Democrat bill” impeaching Trump.
What does a fact-checking organization do when the facts aren’t clear? And what happens when reputable scientists disagree about a public health policy?