Facebook Twitter Tumblr Close Skip to main content
A Project of The Annenberg Public Policy Center

Do ‘Most Americans’ Agree with Romney on Gay Marriage?

Do ‘Most Americans’ Agree with Romney on Gay Marriage?

The Republican party chairman claims “most Americans” agree with Mitt Romney “that marriage ought to be defined between one man and one woman.” Americans are closely divided on the issue. Various polls show either a slight plurality or majority of Americans support same-sex marriages, although sometimes within the margin of error.
This much is clear: American attitudes have been trending in support of gay marriage for the past few years, as this Gallup poll chart shows:
Reince Priebus,

Group Skews Facts on Obama’s ‘Shameless’ Statements

Group Skews Facts on Obama’s ‘Shameless’ Statements

A group claiming to be backed by veterans has gone too far in a viral Web video that portrays the president as a glory hog after Osama bin Laden’s death.
We cannot dispute the video’s larger point: That President Obama is using Bin Laden’s killing to score political points. But the video – produced by a former Bush-Cheney campaign operative and boasting more than 1 million hits on YouTube — misleads by:

Claiming the Washington Post criticized Obama for having the “Shameless Gall” to score political points.

Romney’s ‘Gross’ Exaggeration on ‘Obamacare’

Romney’s ‘Gross’ Exaggeration on ‘Obamacare’

Mitt Romney falsely claims government will “constitute … almost 50 percent” of the U.S. economy when the new federal health care law takes full effect. But Romney gets to 50 percent by erroneously counting all health care spending — private and public — as “effectively under government control once Obamacare is fully implemented,” as his spokesman put it.
That’s nonsense — just as it was two years ago, when Rep. Michele Bachmann made a similar bogus claim.

‘The Life of Julia,’ Corrected

‘The Life of Julia,’ Corrected

The Obama campaign depends on some false or dubious assumptions in its “Life of Julia” slide show. The infographic depicts a fictional woman whose life from age 3 to 67 is better under the president’s policies than under those of Republican Mitt Romney. But in reality …

Obama Criminalize Free Speech?

Q: Did President Obama secretly sign a law that makes it a crime to protest against him or ask him a question he doesn’t like?
A: No. He openly announced the signing of a bill overwhelmingly passed by Congress that slightly revises a 1971 law against trespassing into areas under Secret Service protection.

Stimulus Money for Jobs Overseas?

Stimulus Money for Jobs Overseas?

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,

A New Front in the ‘War on Women’

A New Front in the ‘War on Women’

Mitt Romney’s senior adviser Ed Gillespie distorted some economic facts on “Meet the Press” when he accused President Obama of creating a U.S. economy that is “hostile” to women.

Gillespie said the “number of single-mother families living in poverty” is now the highest “in recorded history.” But poverty statistics date only to 1959, and the poverty rate for single mothers — which is a better indicator than the total number — is still relatively low,

Straining the Facts on Federal Spending

Straining the Facts on Federal Spending

A TV ad by a conservative group gives some factually challenged answers to its own rhetorical question, “How exactly does President Obama spend your tax dollars?”

It wrongly claims that the boss of the General Services Administration “couldn’t make it to Vegas because she had meetings planned … at Solyndra.” That’s not true. The claim linking the two scandals is based on an inaccurate April 10 report that was quickly corrected — nearly two weeks before the ad first aired.

Obama Misquotes GOP Congresswoman

Obama Misquotes GOP Congresswoman

President Obama misrepresented the position of Republican Rep. Virginia Foxx on college debt. The president quoted Foxx as saying that she had “very little tolerance for people who tell me they graduate with debt.” But Foxx was speaking explicitly about those with very large amounts of debt, a fact that Obama omitted and that changes the meaning of the North Carolina congresswoman’s statement.
The sin of omission was in Obama’s speech in Boulder, Colo., as the president pushed for the extension of current federal student loan interest rates.

Romney Misfires with EPA Anecdote

Romney Misfires with EPA Anecdote

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,