Former Bush adviser Karen Hughes and Democratic Rep. James Clyburn both twisted facts to make partisan points on "Meet the Press."
Hughes claimed that the "vast majority" of recent job losses happened under President Obama, when in fact slightly more jobs were lost when her former boss George W. Bush was president. And Clyburn claimed that inadequate health insurance is "the biggest cause" of personal bankruptcies, which isn’t quite true either. Health costs are a contributing factor to most bankruptcies,
FactCheck Posts
Pawlenty’s Bailout Blarney
Once again we find that Tim Pawlenty has changed course on an issue that is something of a litmus test for Republican candidates. In this case, it’s government bailouts.
On Jan. 16, he condemned all such bailouts, saying: "I don’t think the government should bail out Wall Street or the mortgage industry or for that matter any other industry." But back in 2008, when the sub-prime lending crisis was gathering force, Pawlenty said that some entities were "too big,
Pawlenty’s Political Climate Change
Likely GOP presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty's views on cap and trade aren't what they used to be.
Pawlenty told "Fox News Sunday" on Jan. 16 that he "never did sign a bill relating to cap and trade" when he was governor of Minnesota, but that's not true. He also said: "I've opposed cap and trade." However, that's been the case only since 2009.
In fact, the bill he signed in 2007 specifically required a task force to "recommend how the state could adopt"
Giuliani and the Lessons of Fort Hood
Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani went beyond the boundaries of what investigators have reported on Sunday when he said the suspect in the 2009 Fort Hood shootings indicated "a desire to participate in jihad" three years before the attack. It is still not clear what the Army knew – and when – about the political views of Maj. Nidal Hasan, or how it failed to identify him as a potential internal threat before the attack that killed 13 people and wounded dozens.
DeLay’s Spin Cycle
Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay resorted to hyperbole Wednesday when he claimed that he was tried and convicted for money laundering in the nation’s most liberal county. It’s liberal all right, but dozens of other counties are more so.
"I was tried in the most liberal county in the state of Texas, and indeed in the United States," DeLay said on NBC’s "Today Show." "The point is that this is a political campaign." DeLay appeared on the show two days after being sentenced to three years in prison.
Bum Rap for Rahm
Sen. Rand Paul distorted an old quote from Rahm Emanuel during an appearance on Fox Business, as he disparaged the reaction of liberals to last weekend’s shootings in Tucson.
The Kentucky Republican, who took office just this month, was asked on Wednesday by Fox host Andrew Napolitano how pundits (Paul Krugman, a liberal columnist for the New York Times, was mentioned) could "get away with blaming murder on political discourse." Paul responded:
Rand Paul,
Gov. Rendell’s Outburst Misses Mark
Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell's angry outburst on CBS' "60 Minutes" was more than unexpected. It was factually wrong.
In a segment on slot machine gambling, Rendell lashed out at CBS reporter Lesley Stahl, when she asked about the "downside" of expanding casino gambling. The outgoing Democratic governor, who signed legislation to allow slot machine gambling in 2004 and table games in 2010, said the "biggest downside is that some people lose their paychecks." But he became visibly angry at Stahl for asking if he had second thoughts about signing legislation that caused "new gamblers"
More Guns, Fewer Murders?
On CNN’s "State of the Union with Candy Crowley," Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah perpetuated a falsehood about gun ownership and lower murder rates.
Lee: And to the contrary, I think there is abundant research suggesting that in cities where more people own guns, the crime rate, especially the murder rate actually goes down.
That’s not true. A causal relationship between prevalence of gun ownership and crime hasn’t been established by researchers. We looked into this subject in 2008 and found that the statistical relationship is the opposite of what Lee said for murder,
Reid Wrong on Jobs, Tea Party
On NBC’s "Meet the Press," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid exaggerated the latest job gains in the manufacturing sector and grossly minimized tea party victories in the 2010 midterm elections.
In the interview — which NBC taped a day before the Jan. 8 shooting of Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and others in Tucson, Ariz. — Reid spoke about the latest employment numbers. The economy added 113,000 private sector jobs in the month of December, dropping the unemployment rate to 9.4 percent from 9.8 percent.
A New Home for FactCheck.org
With the New Year we are getting new GPS coordinates.
FactCheck.org is moving to the Annenberg Public Policy Center’s new headquarters building on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania. Our web address, of course, remains unchanged.
Our new physical address:
FactCheck.org
c/o Annenberg Public Policy Center
202 S. 36th St.
Philadelphia, PA 19104-3806
Our telephone numbers:
Annenberg Public Policy Center: (215) 898-9400
FactCheck.org News Desk: (215) 573-7070
Annenberg’s Washington, D.C., office — which has been our home since we began operations in 2003 —