The president and House speaker restated familiar positions in their dueling debt ceiling speeches, but they took their points too far at times or made them without enough context. …
Person: Barack Obama
Obama Inflates Defense ‘Cut’
President Obama's claim "that we've already cut" $400 billion in defense spending is misleading. The president was referring to a Defense Department report that identified $178 billion in "efficiencies" over five years — which the administration says will save $400 billion over 10 years. But only $78 billion of the $178 billion represents actual cuts; the rest of the identified efficiencies will be reinvested in other Pentagon programs.
The president more than once has claimed he cut defense spending by $400 billion,
Did Obama ‘Enact’ DREAM Act?
Q: Did President Obama “enact” the DREAM Act by executive order to give “amnesty” to 20 million illegal immigrants?
A: No. But the administration in 2011 adopted a policy of giving “particular care” before deporting students, military veterans and others deemed to be low risk. In 2011, it issued a new policy to allow certain illegal immigrants brought to the U.S. as children to apply for two-year work permits.
Crossroads Targets Dems for Budget Woes
The conservative group Crossroads GPS has launched a $7 million ad campaign targeting President Obama, five Democratic senators and 10 representatives. A lot of the content in the ads …
Obama’s Untrue Anecdote
President Obama's much-told story about his mother's fight to get cancer coverage was untrue, according to a recently published book. And the White House isn't disputing the author's account.
The New York Times reports that Janny Scott, in her biography, “A Singular Woman: The Untold Story of Barack Obama’s Mother,” writes that Stanley Ann Dunham's health insurance provider did, in fact, cover most of the medical expenses related to her uterine and ovarian cancer.
Cheney Ad ‘Hasty’ with Quotes
Liz Cheney's group quotes U.S. military leaders out of context to attack President Obama's Afghanistan policy.
Keep America Safe, which is headed by the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, is airing a TV ad that uses brief video clips of congressional testimony given by Gen. David Petraeus and Adm. Mike Mullen to support its claim that Obama's plan to reduce troop levels in Afghanistan will put U.S. soldiers at greater risk. It's true that both military leaders recommended maintaining higher troop levels.
The Traveling President
Q: Is President Obama flying on Air Force One more than other presidents did? Is he being accompanied by more people on international trips?
A: Two chain e-mails suggesting that the president’s travel habits are more excessive than his predecessors are off base.
Obama’s Mis-tweets
In a "Twitter Town Hall" event, President Barack Obama repeated a disputed claim about the electric car battery market, and he claimed that the payroll tax holiday is worth $1,000 to "almost every single American" when many will get less than that.
Obama took questions from Twitter users — limited to 140 characters, of course — and gave more verbose answers in the July 6 televised event at the White House. He touted the fact that the U.S.
Obama Gets Caught Up in Red Tape
President Barack Obama incorrectly claimed his administration has undertaken an "unprecedented" review of burdensome regulations. In fact, every president since at least Jimmy Carter has done similar reviews, including one under Bill Clinton that resulted in the elimination of more than 16,000 pages of federal regulations.
Obama made his claim during his hour-long press conference on June 29:
Obama, June 29: But what I have done — and this is unprecedented, by the way, no administration has done this before —
Bachmann’s Waterloo
Rep. Michele Bachmann officially joined the presidential campaign trail, but made a flurry of false and misleading claims along the way. The Minnesota Republican appeared on two …