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In the final days before the Pennsylvania primary, the two Democratic candidates went after each other on health care. "Hillary Clinton's attacking, but what's she not telling you about her health care plan?" the narrator in a Barack Obama campaign ad asks. "It forces everyone to buy insurance, even if you can't afford it, and you pay a penalty if you don't." Text on the screen shows a news story with the highlighted words, "willing to have workers' wages garnisheed if they refuse to buy health insurance." Read Clinton's health care plan, and you won't find "garnisheed wages" in any of the fine print. But her plan does have an individual mandate β€” every person in the country will be required to have health insurance one way or another. (Obama's plan has a mandate for children only.) Clinton hasn't specified how she will enforce the mandate. Obama's ad cites an Associated Press article, titled "Clinton acknowledges willingness to tap wages of those who refuse to buy health insurance." That story is a report of an interview Clinton gave to George Stephanopoulos of ABC News' This Week. Stephanopoulos asked Clinton how she intended to enforce the mandate: "Will you have fines for people who don't buy health care, don't go by the mandate? Will you garnish their wages?" Clinton responded by saying that her plan will lower costs and that it's an important principle that everyone be included in the system. After more pressing from Stephanopoulos, Clinton answered his question on garnished wages: "George, we will have an enforcement mechanism, whether it's that or it's some other mechanism through the tax system or automatic enrollments, but you're missing I believe the key point. ... The reason why I think there are a number of mechanisms β€” going after people's wages, automatic enrollment, when you are at the place of employment, you will be automatically enrolled β€” whatever the mechanism is, is not as important as, number one, the fundamental commitment to universal health care, the appreciation that with health care tax credits and with a premium cap it will be affordable for everyone." The Obama ad uses Clinton's promise of universal coverage to imply dire consequences for those who don't comply with the mandate. In practice, Clinton's plan, just like Obama's, emphasizes leaving in place employer-paid coverage that people already have, while expanding eligibility for the poor and children to enroll in initiatives like Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program. Both of their plans subsidize premiums for some employers and create pools for individuals to buy their own cheaper insurance. Both plans include initiatives to increase technology and use more preventative care. Is it possible that Clinton's plan could garnish wages? Yes. Her plan has a mandate, and she said it was one of several ways that a mandate could be enforced. But she was clearly speaking of it as one scenario among several, not advocating it as a definite enforcement mechanism. For this reason, we find Obama's claim to be Half True.
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Thousands of subsidiaries, many from U.S. corporations, have indeed set up shop β€” or more precisely, hung a nameplate β€” at the five-story Ugland House and other financial centers in the Cayman Islands. They include Coca-Cola, Procter & Gamble, General Motors, Intel, FedEx and Sprint. But while Sen. Barack Obama is right on the general point, calling the practice "the biggest tax scam on record" is questionable. From the quote itself, it's hard to tell if Obama is taking issue with the way companies use the Caymans as a tax shelter, or if he's objecting to the U.S. tax code that makes it possible. "There's nothing better than to beat up on a tax haven on a beach," said Douglas Shackelford, a professor at the University of North Carolina's business school. "It sounds crooked, but if one really thinks about the facts, I don't see the grounding." Weather isn't drawing the corporations, of course. The Caymans do not have a corporate income tax. The United States taxes corporate income at 35 percent, higher than most countries. As long as profits are not brought back to the United States, or "repatriated," no tax is due. Federal law allows the taxation of "passive income," meaning the interest earned on profits of those subsidiaries. But typically the companies reinvest the money elsewhere, Shackelford said. Obama is the co-sponsor of legislation that would crack down on offshore activities by corporations and individuals. The Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act would target an estimated $100-billion annually, including $30-billion from corporations. According to published financial reports, Coca-Cola alone saved $500-million in U.S. taxes in 2003 through foreign subsidiaries. Its Cayman company controls syrup-producing facilities in Ireland. The subsidiary pays taxes in Ireland at 12.5 percent, still far less than in the United States. So, Obama is right that thousands of corporations, and some do say more than 12,000, are in one building in the Caymans, but he goes too far when he implies it's an illegal scam. We rule his statement Half True.
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Before he bowed out of the race, Sen. Joe Biden dismissed the legislative accomplishments of three Democratic primary rivals with whom he served. Biden was particularly direct summing up Clinton's tenure, saying, "There's not a major bill I know with Hillary's name on it." In some ways, Biden's assessment is correct: Clinton has not been the lead sponsor of legislation dealing with a major national issue that made its way to President Bush's desk. But New York's junior senator has had comparatively few opportunities after spending four of her seven years in the chamber as a member of the minority. Instead, she has worked the way many senators do, introducing bills that wind up getting included in another's initiative, drafting a Senate companion bill to a popular House initiative or working with home state Republicans to send money to New York or protect local interests. After eight years as first lady, Clinton deliberately sought a lower profile in the Senate, respecting the seniority system and tending to steer away from contentious national debates such as health care. She also has adopted moderate β€” some would say carefully calibrated β€” rhetoric on abortion, the war in Iraq, fiscal policy and social issues. The approach surprised many of her critics, who suspected she would stake out more liberal positions and primarily use New York and the Senate as a stepping stone for her national ambitions. She was the leading Democratic sponsor of a 2003 law that gave the Food and Drug Administration the power to order drug companies to test their drugs to determine the proper dosages for children. The effort was inspired by cases in which children died or were injured taking drugs or using medical devices shown safe for adults. She worked with South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham in 2006 to get portions of legislation she authored to extend health coverage to National Guard troops and reservists included in a fiscal 2007 defense authorization bill. After the Sept. 11 attacks, Clinton authored a companion bill to House legislation ensuring that public safety officers killed or injured in the line of duty during the attacks would receive expedited payment of benefits. On another matter closely related to her home state, Clinton worked with Republican congressman Tom Reynolds to keep the Niagara Falls Air Reserve Station open at a time when the Pentagon was closing bases β€” a move that saved 800 jobs. Clinton has effectively used her senatorial power to influence a handful of issues and to focus on local politics. Biden is correct when he says her name is not on a major bill, but as Biden knows better than most, that's not a fair measure of a legislator's accomplishments. We rule his statement Mostly True.
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Who sends a dog to do their bidding? A cute, ribbon-in-its-hair Yorkie named Spike, at that? Mitt Romney. Yes, in his latest round of yapping with rival Mike Huckabee, Romney sent Iowa voters a mailer that assails Huckabee's tax record and, more notably, features many adorable pictures of Spike: "Dear Iowa Republican ... " it begins, "At the risk of making Chuck Norris angry, I must disagree with his endorsement of Mike Huckabee for President. (Please stick with me here. If putting Chuck Norris in a television ad makes sense, a dog responding in a mailing makes just as much sense.)" It's signed: "Bow wow, Spike" with a paw print. Now we know Iowa is passe, but given New Hampshire's antitax climate, we wouldn't be surprised to see this attack ad in a few Nashua mailboxes. And we can't help but give Romney points for humor. This is the joke attack ad style the Hillary Clinton campaign missed out on when it dug up quotes from Sen. Barack Obama's kindergarten teacher to prove he's been aiming for the White House longer than he admits. (True!) But, back to Spike. He attacks Huckabee for "all the different taxes" he raised as governor of Arkansas, including the one that really gets him: the tax on dog groomers. (We checked Huckabee's record on the other tax increases here. ) "Sales tax. Gas tax. Groceries tax. Even the tax on nursing home beds. Fine," Spike writes. "But he went too far when he taxed the people who make me beautiful!" Would you believe Spike is barking up the right tree? A number of services were made subject to the Arkansas state sales tax with Act 107 of the 2003 legislative session. Wrecker and towing services. Body piercing, tattooing and electrolysis services. Locksmith services. And, pet grooming and kennel services. As of July 1, 2004, charges for those services and nine others named in the legislation are subject to a 6 percent state sales tax, all part of an effort to generate revenue to balance the budget in the face of a dramatic projected budget shortfall. "Like most states at that time, revenues were dropping, so they levied (additional taxes)," said Tom Atchley, excise tax administrator for the Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration. Act 107 became law on Feb. 12, 2004, without a signature from then-Gov. Huckabee, who has said he had little choice but to accept the tax increases because Arkansas state law requires a balanced budget. Still, no bones about it, Spike makes a solid case. And Romney scores a funny jab. If you'd like to see the mailer, which is worth a peek, it's posted at the Washington Post blog "The Trail" here. But because Huckabee didn't sign the law, we can't say Huckabee himself put a tax on dog groomers. But he didn't stop it either, so we rule Spike's statement Mostly True.
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Before he bowed out of the race, Sen. Joe Biden dismissed the legislative accomplishments of three Democratic primary rivals with whom he served. About Barack Obama, he said, "Barack Obama hasn't passed any." By that wording, Biden is wrong. Obama, who was sworn into office in January 2005, spent much of his time in the Senate taking a high-profile position as spokesman for Democrats' efforts to overhaul congressional ethics standards, including his own bid to make Senate colleagues pay the full charter rate, rather than first-class airfare, for rides in corporate jets. The effort drew the ire of such senior senators as Ted Stevens of Alaska, whose state is so big that corporate planes are often the only way to get around. Senate leaders included that jet travel requirement in a lobbying practices and disclosures bill signed into law in September 2007. But as a member of the minority party, Obama also worked across the aisle with Republicans to push several measures that became law in 2006. Working with Republican Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, Obama won enactment of a law creating a single, searchable database of all federal contracts, grants and loans. He also partnered with senior Indiana Republican Sen. Richard Lugar, the former chairman of the Foreign Relations panel, to sponsor legislation to strengthen international efforts to destroy conventional weapons, though it did not advance out of committee. Separately, Obama was lead sponsor of a bill to provide relief and promote democracy in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which was signed into law in December 2006. He introduced legislation in 2005 to require federal preparations for an avian flu pandemic, but it didn't advance. And he weighed in on another "good government" initiative during congressional debate on tougher lobbying disclosure standards, by backing the creation of an independent "Office of Public Integrity" that would investigate congressional ethics cases and receive and monitor financial disclosure reports required from members of Congress, officers and employees of Congress and lobbyists. The bid failed in 2006 due to opposition from members of the Senate Ethics Committee, who said it would politicize the panel. Another attempt to include it in the Democrats' ethics bill failed in early 2007. Obama's tendency to focus on nonidelogical issues is pragmatic, because they tend not to have powerful enemies or, if they do, are shielded by solid support in both parties. But some of his initiatives have languished, either because he was a junior member of the Democratic caucus or because they encountered institutional resistance. One would have rewarded troubled school districts with extra federal help in exchange for deep changes. Though advocacy groups generally gave him positive marks for taking action, Obama's absence from heated political battles makes it difficult to assess his effectiveness as a legislator. Still, he has passed one bill signed into law, making Biden's statement False.
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Sen. Hillary Clinton, trying to retrieve momentum after losing the Iowa caucuses, went after Sen. Barack Obama in a Jan. 5, 2008, debate in New Hampshire and charged him with being a flip-flopper. "You've changed positions within three years on ... a range of issues that you put forth when you ran for the Senate," Clinton said. "You said you would vote against the Patriot Act, then you came to the Senate, you voted for it." Clinton questioned how serious Obama is about scrapping the 2001 antiterrorism law, noting that he voted to extend it in early 2006 after pledging as a Senate candidate to scrap or replace the law. A closer examination reveals that while Clinton's charge is technically correct, Obama went further than she did in trying to expand civil rights guarantees and give Democrats more chances to change the law. As a candidate for the Senate in 2003, Obama said he supported repealing or replacing the Patriot Act, branding it "shoddy and dangerous" in a response to a National Organization for Women survey of candidates. Obama never got a clear-cut opportunity to make good on the pledge, but was active during a debate in late 2005 and early 2006 on reauthorizing 16 expiring provisions in the law. House and Senate negotiators had deadlocked for months on whether to include more protections for civil liberties and to impose time limits on some of the most contentious provisions in the sweeping law. After consultations with the White House, Republican chief negotiators presented a compromise that won enough Democratic support to reauthorize the act. However, Obama and 29 fellow Democrats along with one independent voted against limiting debate in an effort to allow Russ Feingold, D-Wis., the only senator to vote against the original law in 2001, to offer amendments that would have, among other things, put in place stronger judicial reviews of administration actions. It also imposed shorter time limits on so-called "sneak-and-peek" searches, in which law enforcement secretly enters a suspect's premises without the suspect's knowledge or permission. Clinton, in contrast, joined 14 fellow Democrats and all of the Senate's 55 Republicans in voting to shut off debate and proceed to a final vote on the compromise. Once Obama's faction lost the bid to keep the debate going, he voted for the compromise. The final tally was 95-4. Clinton was also among those senators voting yes. Obama said the final deal was not ideal but was an improvement over earlier Republican proposals. "This compromise does modestly improve the Patriot Act by strengthening civil liberties protections without sacrificing the tools that law enforcement needs to keep us safe," he said, adding, "I urge my colleagues to continue working on ways to improve the civil liberties protections in the Patriot Act after it is reauthorized." So while Obama did vote to reauthorize the Patriot Act, he did so after working to improve the law by expanding civil rights guarantees. We rule Clinton's statement Half True.
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Hillary Clinton highlighted an accurate inconsistency in Barack Obama's rhetoric and reality during the Democratic debate in New Hampshire on Jan. 5, 2008, three days ahead of the state's primary. "You know, when it comes to lobbyists ... Sen. Obama's chair in New Hampshire is a lobbyist," Clinton said. "He lobbies for the drug companies." As Clinton talked, Obama shook his head no as if he disagreed. "He was shaking his head because her implication was that it violated our lobbyist pledge and his role quite clearly does not," Obama spokesman Bill Burton said afterward. The Democrat has pledged not to take money from federal lobbyists or from federal political action committees. The man on the hot seat is Jim Demers, a veteran New Hampshire strategist and early Obama supporter who is one of the campaign's four state co-chairs. In the May 20, 2007, announcement of his position, the Obama campaign kept its distance, labeling Demers a "former lobbyist" and saying he "will act in a VOLUNTARY role as part of the statewide team." And for good reason. On the campaign trail, Obama frequently assails lobbyists' influence in Washington, rejecting their campaign contributions and vowing not to let them work in his White House. (We previously found his antilobbyist policy has a few loopholes that allow him to accept money from well-connected state lobbyists.) Records at the New Hampshire secretary of state's office show Demers currently is a registered lobbyist. He is president of the Demers Group, a lobbying firm based in Concord, N.H. In fact, he filed forms Dec. 28, 2007, to lobby for 20 organizations β€” including drugmaker Pfizer and the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA). Demers, a University of Miami alum, is an experienced political player in New Hampshire. He served three terms in the state House and in 2004 was named the most influential lobbyist by PoliticsNH.com, according to biographies listed on various Web sites. Records show he is not currently a registered federal lobbyist. Confronted by Clinton's statement, the Obama campaign once again drew a line between lobbyists who seek to influence the federal government and those like Demers who work at the state level. "A ban on lobbying money and PACs is far from perfect," Robert Gibbs, Obama's communications director, said in a statement. "There is a difference between a college football player and professional football player." By noting Obama's lobbyist ties, Clinton is trying to deflect the barrage of criticism she has received for taking the most money among all presidential candidates from lobbyists and the health care industry. (Claims we previously found Mostly True .) Despite the Obama campaign's contention that there is a difference between lobbyists at the federal level and lobbyists at the state level, Clinton's charge was unspecific. It simply says Obama's chair in New Hampshire is a lobbyist. He is. We find Clinton's claim to be True.
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The GOP candidates keep sparring over who's tougher on immigration. In this climate, dem is fightin' words to say your opponent supports "sanctuary" or "amnesty" for illegal immigrants. But as Giuliani reminded his foes during the Jan. 5, 2008, Republican debate, none other than Ronald Reagan, the patron saint of modern-day conservatism, signed the very law that Republicans call amnesty. Say it ain't so! Sorry. It's so. In 1986, Reagan signed an immigration reform bill, the first in 20 years, that legalized the status for 1.7-million people. Some defenders of the law dispute the term "amnesty." But here's how Edwin Meese, Reagan's former attorney general, characterizes what his boss did: "President Reagan called this what it was: amnesty. Indeed, look up the term 'amnesty' in Black's Law Dictionary, and you'll find it says, 'the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act provided amnesty for undocumented aliens already in the country.' " Reagan signed the bill after Republicans and Democrats cobbled together an amnesty program in response to concerns from farmers worried about harvesting profits. The official record of congressional debates shows that lawmakers intended the program to provide a steady supply of labor for growers of perishable crops, such as cherries, grapes, peaches, etc. At the time the bill was written, however, "perishable" was defined so loosely that more durable crops such as potted plants, tobacco and seedlings were lumped in as well. So even at the start, this program could be interpreted in ways that would benefit employers looking to save on wages. To qualify for temporary status, migrants had to show they entered the United States before Jan. 1, 1982, and that they had continuously resided since then. They could get permanent residency within 18 months after that if they met certain requirements, such as learning English. The program took effect in 1987, also covering up to 350,000 people who had worked in U.S. agriculture at least 90 days in each of the preceding three years. Many have called the program a success because it awarded green cards to 2.7-million migrants, giving them the hope of entry to the American middle class. In exchange for the amnesty, the new law was supposed to have beefed up border patrols and stiffened fines for both the migrant workers and employers in cases of violation. Alas, the law failed to stop illegal immigration, and many critics of the law say the government never thoroughly regulated employers who skirted the law's requirements. This much is certain: If the law aimed to curb illegal immigration, it failed: When the law was passed, there were about 5-million illegal immigrants; now, there's an estimated 12-million. When Reagan signed the law, many predicted it would encourage the hiring of more migrants, especially outside of agriculture, and that this would spur the backlash against immigration that we're seeing today. Giuliani, it would seem, brought up Reagan's legacy to show how difficult the immigration issue is. In doing so, he didn't trip any alarms on the Truth-O-Meter, which scores him a True.
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During a testy exchange in the Jan. 5, 2008, debate, John McCain accused Mitt Romney of mischaracterizing his stand on immigration by calling it "amnesty" for illegal immigrants. Romney sternly replied, "I don't describe your plan as amnesty in my ad. I don't call it amnesty." This denial earns Romney a Pants on Fire ruling because two ads he released in recent days use that exact language. The only thing possibly saving the former Massachusetts governor is that the ads feature other people using the controversial word, not Romney himself. In a Romney ad called "Remember" launched on Jan. 3, a group of New Hampshire residents praise McCain's military experience and record of public service, then tick off grievances with McCain's positions on taxes and immigration. One, identified as Collett Hill, says of McCain, "He wrote the amnesty bill that America rejected." A second Romney spot called "Twists" released Jan. 4 opens with an eight-year-old clip of McCain accusing George W. Bush of twisting the truth during the 2000 presidential campaign. An announcer then enumerates reasons McCain was wrong then, and why he's not as conservative as Romney. Among the reasons cited, "Higher taxes, amnesty for illegals." If the message in ads isn't clear enough, press releases for the ads that are posted on Romney's Web site are chock-full of references to amnesty. The release for "Remember" uses the word 17 times, while the one for "Twists" drops the loaded word 10 times. Clearly, Romney has two ads where McCain's plan is described as amnesty. And even though his isn't the voice making the charges, he is responsible for the message. So, Romney, they're your ads, and they do "call it amnesty," so Pants on Fire it is.
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In a sharp exchange with John Edwards during a Jan. 5, 2008, debate in New Hampshire, Hillary Clinton made the case that she has a well-established record of fighting for change. She pointed to her role in starting the State Children's Health Insurance Program, called SCHIP. The program, created in 1997, promotes health coverage for children by providing federal funding to states. The states then put up their own money and set rules to provide care for uninsured children. "There are 7,000 kids in New Hampshire who have health care because I helped to create the Children's Health Insurance Program," Clinton said. Clinton's number is correct. A study by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that in June 2006, there were 7,688 children enrolled in SCHIP in New Hampshire. Clinton is also on solid ground saying that she helped to create SCHIP. Much of the credit for SCHIP usually goes to Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., who shepherded the legislation through a Republican-controlled Congress. But the Clinton campaign has said previously that she used her influence behind the scenes to push for SCHIP, and there is evidence to support that. Soon after the legislation passed, the New York Times reported, "Participants in the campaign for the health bill both on and off Capitol Hill said the first lady had played a crucial behind-the-scenes role in lining up White House support." In a previous campaign ad, Clinton claimed credit for SCHIP without any qualifiers, and we found that contention Half True, given the other people who had a hand in passing the legislation. (See that ruling here .) But in this case, she accurately said she helped to create SCHIP (as in she wasn't the only one), and she got the number right on how many children are enrolled in New Hampshire. For these reasons, we rate Clinton's statement True.
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In a new television ad, Sen. Barack Obama makes the case for America leading international efforts to control nuclear weapons. "The single most important national security threat that we face is nuclear weapons falling into the hands of terrorists," Obama says in the ad. "What I did was reach out to Sen. Dick Lugar, a Republican, to help lock down loose nuclear weapons. We have to lead the entire world to reduce that threat. We can restore America's leadership in the world." We checked into Obama's legislative record with Sen. Lugar, a Republican from Indiana. Obama's first foreign travel as a U.S. senator was with Lugar in August 2005, when the two men visited nuclear weapons storage and dismantlement facilities in Russia, Ukraine and Azerbaijan. The following spring, Lugar and Obama authored a Senate bill that authorized the president to carry out a program to provide assistance to foreign countries to prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. The bill does not specifically list different types of weapons of mass destruction, but we'll take as a given that it includes nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. The larger part of the legislation was a separate measure to stop the spread of conventional weapons, notably shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles that the legislation refers to as man-portable air defense systems, or MANPADS. The bill's provisions were incorporated into a House bill that passed later that year and was signed into law in January 2007. The Lugar-Obama initiative is modeled after a 1991 bill authored by Lugar and former Democratic Sen. Sam Nunn. The Nunn-Lugar program provided U.S. funding and expertise to the former Soviet Union to dismantle stockpiles of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. We'll note here that the legislation Obama and Lugar sponsored did not deal solely with nuclear weapons, but rather with all weapons of mass destruction, and that a good bit of their legislation focused on conventional weapons. But it does seem like part of the legislation's intent is to "help lock down loose nuclear weapons." For that reason, we find Obama's statement to be True.
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During the Democratic debate in Philadelphia, Hillary Clinton was asked about gun control. As part of her answer, she talked about reducing gun violence in cities, and mentioned Philadelphia's struggle with that. "You know, more than one person, on average, a day is murdered in Philadelphia," Clinton said. "And Mayor (Michael) Nutter is very committed, as the mayor of this great city, to try to do what he can to stem the violence." A murder a day means more than 365 murders per year. Last year, Philadelphia did hit that unhappy milestone with 392 murders. That was down slightly from 2006, when there were 406 murders. This year, though, murders have declined since the beginning of the year. The home page of the Philadelphia Police Department tracks the year's murders, and the day after the Philadelphia debate, the number stood at 87, down from 114 on the same date a year ago. At that rate, the murder rate is about 20 percent less than a murder a day. So previous year's statistics do bear out Clinton's point, but the statistics for 2008 do not. For this reason, we find her statement to be Half True. If you were wondering how Washington works, an ad from the Barack Obama campaign ostensibly offers a primer – "A Guide to Understanding Washington Lobbyists" β€” while it attacks Hillary Clinton. The Web-only ad outlines the following steps with on-screen text: Step 1: "Lobbyists donate to politicians." Step 2: "Politicians defend lobbyists." Step 3: "Americans pay the price." As part of the first step, the ad states: "Senator Hillary Clinton has taken over $800,000 from lobbyists, more money than any other candidate β€” Republican or Democrat: * Over $130,000 from energy lobbyists * Over $130,000 from drug company lobbyists * Over $125,000 from health care and insurance lobbyists." We asked the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, which categorizes and analyzes political contributions, whether this text was accurate. The $800,000 number is correct. A recent analysis by the center showed Clinton has accepted $865,290 from lobbyists, based on data released on March 20, 2008. The threshold of contributions by industry the ad lists for Clinton is probably too low, said Massie Ritsch, a spokesman for the center. The center's analysis found the following amounts that lobbyists gave to Clinton: * Energy: $442,800 * Pharmaceuticals/health products: $450,450 * Hospitals, health services/HMOs and insurance companies: $552,050 * Health professionals: $114,755. Based on these numbers, we find Obama's statement that Clinton has taken more than $800,000 from lobbyists to be True.
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As part of a dust-up over which candidate is more likely to stand up to Big Oil, Hillary Clinton knocks Barack Obama for taking money from people who work for oil companies. The ad starts by showing Obama saying, "I don't take money from oil companies." The Clinton ad's narrator chides Obama for boasting about this when corporations are prohibited by law from donating to political candidates. "But Barack Obama accepted $200,000 from executives and employees of oil companies," the narrator ads. Obama would have been correct if he had said he didn't take money from oil company lobbyists or political action committees. (He did make this point in a later ad, which we found to be Mostly True; see it here .) The ad also is correct that Obama accepted $222,309 from executives and employees of oil companies, according to an analysis from the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. It's worth noting those donations could be from anyone from the CEO to the janitor. People who donate to political candidates are required to list their occupation and employer. It's important to note that this rule is has far from perfect compliance; sometimes people don't fill it in at all. Clinton doesn't mention the fact that she accepted even more money from executives and employees of oil companies β€” $309,363, according to the center. And she accepted about $442,800 from energy lobbyists, according to the center, though not all of that is from oil and gas alone. Nevertheless, the ad is correct that Obama did accept money from employees of oil companies, and we rate its statement True. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton aired television ads about the oil and gas industry just before the Democratic primary in Pennsylvania. Obama's ad asserts, "Obama's the only candidate who doesn't take a dime from oil company PACs or lobbyists. And that's change we can believe in." Obama has stated he has a policy of not accepting campaign contributions from political action committees or lobbyists. There's a bit of fine print on this, however, as we've reported previously . Obama does not take money from registered federal lobbyists, but he does take money from state lobbyists, retired lobbyists and spouses of lobbyists. The nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics has a broad definition of lobbyist money that includes contributions from spouses of lobbyists. By its reckoning, Obama has received $115,163 in money from lobbyists based on data released on March 20, 2008. We can't say how much of that comes from contributors connected with oil and gas lobbyists versus other kinds of lobbyists. Many lobbyists represent more than one industry. It's worth noting, however, that Obama's total lags his significantly behind Clinton, who got $865,290, from lobbyists, and John McCain, who got $590,952. Is it possible that Barack Obama took "a dime" from someone connected to oil and gas lobbyists? Yes. But it looks as if Obama took good-faith measures not to accept money from current lobbyists for any industry, including oil and gas. For these reasons, we find his statement Mostly True.
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A chain e-mail going around the Internet announces, "Voters Beware! ... We are in for big time trouble if either H. Rodham Clinton or B. Hussein Obama were to be elected as President of the United States." ( Click here to read the chain e-mail in its entirety .) The e-mail asserts that Sens. Clinton and Obama want to raise capital gains taxes and dividends taxes, as well as raise tax rates for all income levels . We'll look at the income taxes claim here. The e-mail says Clinton and Obama will roll back the Bush tax cuts for people making $30,000 a year and up, while Sen. John McCain won't. These cuts are set to expire during the next president's first term. But the e-mail wrongly describes the Obama and Clinton plans. Obama and Clinton have both said they don't want to let the tax cuts expire for people earning under a certain amount. When we first looked at this e-mail, Clinton had said she would not raise tax rates on people making more than $250,000 a year, and Obama had made similar statements. They further clarified their stances on tax cuts at a debate in Philadelphia on April 16, 2008. Both candidates said said then they would not raise tax rates for people making less than $250,000 a year. Both indicated they would consider raising the capital gains tax. ( See the statement on capital gains here. ) So the e-mail is wrong about what Clinton and Obama have actually proposed. It's correct that McCain supports making the Bush tax cuts permanent for all income levels. Also, the e-mail calculates the current taxes for different income brackets, purporting to show what taxpayers would pay under McCain's "no changes" plan. But the numbers appear to be slightly off. We calculated the tax rates using the 2007 tax tables listed by the IRS. The taxes are as follows: Single making 30K - tax $4,113; not $4,500 Single making 50K - tax $8,930; not $12,500 Single making 75K - tax $15,180; not $18,750 Married making 60K- tax $8,221; not $9,000 Married making 75K - tax $11,604; not $18,750 Married making 125K - tax $24,098; not $31,250 We find this chain e-mail gets facts both large and small wrong. It doesn't list the higher tax brackets that actually would go up if Clinton or Obama implemented their plans, and it accuses them of wanting to raise rates on lower incomes that they've said should stay the same. So we rate the chain e-mail's claim False. UPDATE: This statement has been updated to reflect comments the Democratic candidates made about the capital gains tax at a debate in Philadelphia on April 16, 2008.
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Sen. Barack Obama says the United States has its priorities about energy research all wrong: Case in point, the government spends less on energy research than the pet food industry does on its own research and development. That's the claim Democratic nominee Obama makes in his "Plan to Make America a Global Energy Leader," to explain why he wants to increase the amount the government spends on energy innovation. "At present, the federal government spends over $3 billion per year on all energy innovation efforts," the Obama plan states. "While this may seem like a significant sum, it is much less than what we spent in the late 1970s when adjusted for inflation, and is less than the pet food industry invests in its own products." A June 2008 Harvard study confirms that the part about the 1970s is true. In inflation-adjusted dollars, the government was spending more than $6 billion a year on energy research and development in the late 1970s, which is more than double what it's spending this year. But that second claim? The pet food one? The Obama campaign declined to explain what the Illinois senator meant, exactly, by "invests in its own products." Instead, it referred Politifact to an August 2007 article by University of California (Berkeley) Professor Daniel M. Kammen, which makes precisely the same point Obama did: "The federal government spends less on energy research and development than the U.S. pet food industry spends on its products in the United States," Kammen wrote. The article, on global warming, contains no footnotes to support the pet food assertion, doesn't expand upon it beyond that one sentence, and Kammen did not respond to several requests for comment. That forces us to take the Obama statement as any voter would: at face value. In his article, Kammen refers to pet food industry spending, which it could be argued, refers to everything the industry spends on its products, from raw materials to packaging to advertising. But Obama uses the word "invests" – and given the parallel construction of his argument – it reads to us like a comparison between federal government energy research and pet food industry research, (i.e. the development of new products.) For its part, the Pet Food Institute, the trade association for the industry, says that it doesn't keep such figures, leaving us to wonder where Kammen got them. But a 2006 study by consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton, which examined the 1,000 companies across all industries that spend the most on research and development, found that on average those companies spent 3.8 percent of their gross sales on R&D.; Given that the pet food industry as a whole grosses about $15 billion a year in sales, it's inconceivable that the industry spends more on new product research than the $3-billion the government spends on energy R&D.; That would be 20 percent of gross sales. As a result, we find Obama's claim to be False.
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Update: We originally addressed this when it was released as a web ad on Memorial Day. On July 11, the McCain campaign released the same video as a national television ad. Because it will be new to many people seeing it for the first time on television, we decided to re-post the item. In a Web ad released on Memorial Day, Sen. John McCain praises the many Hispanic soldiers serving in the U.S. military, some of whom are not yet legal citizens of the United States. "My friends, I want you, the next time you're down in Washington, D.C., to go to the Vietnam War Memorial and look at the names engraved in black granite," McCain begins. "You'll find a whole lot of Hispanic names. "When you go to Iraq or Afghanistan today, you're going to see a whole lot of people who are of Hispanic background. "You're even going to meet some of the few thousand that are still green card holders who are not even citizens of this country, who love this country so much that they're willing to risk their lives in its service in order to accelerate their path to citizenship and enjoy the bountiful, blessed nation. "So let's, from time to time, remember that these are God's children. They must come into this country legally, but they have enriched our culture and our nation as every generation of immigrants before them." We checked with the Defense Department to see how many noncitizens are serving in the U.S. military, and if McCain was accurate that there are thousands serving in Iraq or Afghanistan. The short answer is that McCain is right. As of Feb. 29, 2008, there were 20,328 noncitizens on active duty in the military (about 1.5 percent of the entire active military), according to a report provided by the Pentagon. Of those, 4,112 were serving in Iraq or Afghanistan, or in support of those operations elsewhere. There were another 2,236 whose citizenship was "unknown." These are legal residents with green cards who have not yet become naturalized citizens. There are citizenship incentives for those who enlist. All immigrants who serve honorably in the military during wartime are eligible to file for immediate citizenship under special wartime provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act. An analysis of the Pentagon report by PolitiFact determined that about a quarter of the "green card" soldiers are originally from Spanish-speaking countries. In addition, there are 10,533 naturalized citizens serving in the military who were born in Spanish-speaking countries. The thousands of noncitizens serving in Iraq and Afghanistan is one of the military's little-known facts. But apparently not to McCain. We rate his statement True.
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Hillary Clinton has been good for the book business. She's sold lots of her own books ($10.5-million in royalties from 2000-2007, according to her tax returns), and she has inspired dozens more by her friends and enemies. At a forum on faith issues in Grantham, Pa., on April 13, 2008, Clinton was asked about her comments that she had felt the presence of the Holy Spirit. She replied that since she was young, she had felt the presence of God many times. She added, "You know, I am someone who has talked a lot about my life. You know more about my life than you know about nearly anybody else's, about 60 books' worth, some of which are, you know, frankly, a little bit off-base." She has mentioned the 60-book figure several times before. We wondered if she was right. We don't normally rely on Wikipedia as a primary source for PolitiFact because it's open-to-all-editors approach raises questions about its accuracy, but we found it has the most complete list of Clinton books. It conveniently separates them into volumes by Clinton herself, as well as those that take an anti-Clinton and pro-Clinton approach. From Clinton herself there is It Takes a Village and Living History, not to mention her senior honors thesis, "There Is Only the Fight...": An Analysis of the Alinsky Model." The pro-Clinton books include The Case for Hillary Clinton and Hillary's Turn: Inside Her Improbable, Victorious Senate Campaign. The anti-Clinton market must be considerably more lucrative because it has four times the pro-Clinton offerings. The anti-Clinton books include Madame Hillary: The Dark Road to the White House, Can She be Stopped? and Hillary's Scheme: Inside the Next Clinton's Ruthless Agenda to Take the White House. The "mostly neutral" books include Carl Bernstein's A Woman in Charge and Judith Warner's Hillary Clinton: The Inside Story. We also found some intriguing scholarly studies: The Rhetorical Construction of the Female Politician in Newspapers: How National Newspapers Portrayed Katherine Harris and Hillary Clinton During Controversial Times and Hillary Rodham Clinton as 'Madonna': The Role of Metaphor and Oxymoron in Image Restoration. We checked the count on WorldCat.org, an online catalog of books. We only counted books in English, which meant we excluded Hillary Clinton: die machtigste Frau der Welt, and we skipped The Hillary Clinton Voodoo Kit: Stick It to Her, Before She Sticks It to You! because it sounded more novelty item than literature. Our WorldCat search came up with 48 books. Wikipedia's list was more complete: 69 books if you include the scholarly studies, 58 if you don't. So Clinton was in the ballpark. We rate her statement True.
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Discussing global threats and whether it's wise to directly engage Iran in talks on matters such as its nuclear program, Sen. Hillary Clinton during the April 16 Democratic debate ruled out meeting with Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. As she criticized the Bush administration for failing to deter Iran from pursuing its nuclear program, Clinton said Ahmadinejad's most recent inflammatory remarks would make it impossible for her to speak with him directly. "I certainly would not meet with Ahmadinejad because even again today he made light of 9/11, and said that he's not even sure it happened and that people actually died," Clinton said. Ahmadinejad, who has a history of provocative statements on such things, including saying the Holocaust was a fake, did indeed, question the U.S. version of the events of 9/11 on three occasions in just over a week. He said U.S. claims about being attacked were a pretext for military action against Iraq and Afghanistan. "Four or five years ago a suspect event took place in New York," Ahmadinejad said in an April 16 speech in the holy city of Qom that was broadcast live on state television, according to Agence France Presse. "A building collapsed and they said that 3,000 people had been killed, whose names were never published. Under this pretext they (the United States) attacked Afghanistan and Iraq and since then a million people have been killed." Ahmadinejad first expressed his doubts about the attacks on April 8 at a ceremony in the holy city of Qom celebrating Iran's nuclear program, which U.S. officials worry could be used to make weapons. He questioned how aircraft could have evaded radar and intelligence and crashed into the twin towers undetected. Ahmadinejad repeated his doubts the next day at a speech at a Shiite holy shrine in the city of Mashhad, according to press accounts. Iran condemned the attacks soon after they occurred. The government at the time was headed by moderate President Mohammad Khatami. Ahmadeinejad has been given to bellicose pronouncement in the past and provoked a global outcry when he described the Holocaust as a myth. During his controversial visit to the United States in September 2007, Ahmadinejad, when asked about the death penalty Iran imposed on homosexuals, denied there were homosexuals in Iran. He has repeatedly called for Israel's destruction. On Wednesday, he reaffirmed his intention to change the international order, Agence France Presse reported. "We have two missions," Ahmadinejad proclaimed. "To construct Iran and change the global situation. It is impossible to reach the summits of progress without changing the corrupt and unjust order of the world." Tehran insists its nuclear program is peaceful and intended to expand energy supplies for a growing population. The statement may be startling, but it's true. Clinton accurately summarized Ahmadeinejad's recent comments about 9/11. We judge her statement to be True.
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At a Republican debate in Manchester, N.H., on Jan. 5, 2008, Rudy Giuliani blamed President Clinton for shrinking the military. "Bill Clinton cut the military drastically," Giuliani said. "It was called the peace dividend, one of those nice-sounding phrases: very devastating. It was a 25, 30 percent cut in the military." This claim is similar to others made by Mitt Romney in campaign speeches that we have previously checked and found were misleading. In April 2007, Romney said, "Following the end of the Cold War, President Clinton began to dismantle our military. He reduced our forces by 500,000. He retired almost 80 ships. Our spending on national defense dropped from over 6 percent of GDP to 3.8 percent today." The two Republicans are correct that military forces were reduced significantly under Clinton. The active-duty military totaled 1.8-million at the start of his presidency in 1993 and declined to 1.4-million in 2000. They are also correct that the naval fleet shrank dramatically. The Navy had 454 ships in 1993, but as vessels were retired and not replaced, the fleet was down to 341 by 2000. But they are selectively choosing numbers that make it appear that the military cuts were Clinton's alone. In fact, the cuts were prompted by the end of the Cold War during the presidency of President George H.W. Bush, a Republican. During Bush's presidency, he and Congress agreed to a sharp drop in military personnel. Active-duty military declined from 2.2-million to 1.8-million. Total defense forces also shrank, from 3.3-million to 2.9-million. The Republicans are trying to portray Clinton and the Democrats as weak on defense and to make the peace dividend look like a partisan effort. But contrary to the Republicans' claims, the post-Cold War shrinkage of the U.S. military was very much a bipartisan effort. It began under a Republican president and a Democratic Congress and continued under a Democratic president and a Republican Congress. And so we find, as we did before, that this claim is Half True.
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Ron Paul said in December 2007 that if the government stopped collecting income tax, we would have about the same level of funding that we did 10 years ago. "And the size of government wasn't all that bad 10 years ago," concluded Paul, who advocates limited government. It made us wonder: Do today's tax collections, minus the income tax, really equal the tax collections of 10 years ago? We asked Paul's campaign what numbers he used to arrive at that conclusion, but we didn't hear back. So we dug into IRS statistics ourselves. The most recent detailed data available on income tax collected in the United States is for 2005. Besides income tax, the IRS collects corporate taxes, employment taxes, estate and gift taxes, and excise taxes. After issuing refunds, the IRS collected $880-billion in individual income tax in 2005. Subtract that from total tax collections for 2005 – which equaled close to $2-trillion – and you get $1.12-trillion. By comparison, total tax collections in 1995 were about $1.27-trillion. Those are two big numbers that sound close. But take out the calculator: The difference between the two numbers comes to about 12 percent, and when you're talking about the federal government, that's a chunk of change – about $150-billion. To put that in perspective, it would pay for almost a year and half of the war in Iraq. Adjust for inflation, and the gap widens to a roughly 30 percent shortfall. We'll concede that it's possible Paul could reduce the budget by that much, based on some of the positions he advocates. Paul has said he'd like to slash the defense budget by pulling back all U.S. troops on foreign soil, zeroing out foreign aid and reducing the size of the active military. He also advocates abolishing other federal functions, like the Department of Education. Whether he makes up that 12 percent difference or not will have to wait for a Paul presidency. Meanwhile, we find his statement that ending the income tax would roll back revenues 10 years to be Mostly True.
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Even staunch Democrats probably recall the guilty pleasure of spending their extra cash from the Bush tax cuts. And just about every American has felt the pinch at the gas pump lately. So which had a bigger impact on your wallet? Are you flush from the Bush tax cuts, or did rising energy prices wipe out the fleeting boon? Sen. Hillary Clinton thinks rising energy prices wiped out your family's tax savings β€” three times over. Whether she's right or wrong depends on several factors. "It depends on how much you drive, and how much you earn," said Len Burman, director of the Tax Policy Institute. (He bikes to work.) Let's start with Clinton's energy number. PolitiFact doesn't know where she got it, since Clinton's camp did not respond to inquiries. But here's what we found. From 2001 to 2006, "average annual energy and gasoline costs have increased by over $2,300," according to "The Middle-Class Squeeze," a September 2006 congressional committee report prepared for Reps. Nancy Pelosi and Henry Waxman, both California Democrats. The report included the gasoline in your car, oil to heat your home, and fuel for electricity. It also included some tough-to-measure "pass-through" costs, such as higher retail prices because of higher shipping costs. Going by this report, Clinton's energy number seems reasonable. Now, for the tax cuts. In 2001, the White House said, "Under the President's tax relief plan, the typical American family of four will be able to keep at least $1,600 more of their own money." That's not how it necessarily worked out, said Burman. A median-income family held on to $744 in 2006 as a result of the tax cuts, according to a Tax Policy Center analysis. Well, it happens that $2,300 is three times more than $744. But PolitiFact finds Clinton's comparison too selective. It appears she's comparing a single year of tax savings (2006) to an escalation in energy prices that took several years. What happens if you add up each year's tax savings, and then add up each year's change in energy costs? After all, oil and gas prices actually dropped in late 2001 and into 2002. The answer is, we don't know. To do that kind of a calculation, over so many years, one would have to account for changing tax laws, inflation, income changes, energy use, driving patterns, what people bought, even the weather. In short, it's not a number that is tracked by the Energy Information Administration or the Tax Policy Center. Maybe the Clinton campaign did all of that, but if so they're not sharing it with us. We're left with somewhat accurate numbers from Clinton (judging by one report) that tell only part of the story of energy costs vs. tax savings. At our generous best, we can only give her a Half True.
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Illegal immigration is one of the key targets of Congressman Tom Tancredo's campaign for president. He wants to secure borders, reduce job prospects for border-crossers and end the "bilingualization" of America. The latter goal is behind this statement on Fox News' The Big Story, where he makes the case that bilingual countries don't work. He cites the newspaper in Ottumwa, Iowa, as an example of things gone wrong. Problem is, his example is wrong. The regular newspaper for Ottumwa, Iowa, is the Ottumwa Courier, published six days a week in English, says Ottumwa Courier publisher Tom Hawley. Reported circulation is around 14,000. Once a week, the Courier publishes a couple thousand Spanish editions along with the regular paper, Hawley says. The top story is printed in English and Spanish and the rest of the paper, which is a compilation of stories from the week, as well as Mexican soccer scores, is printed in Spanish. The Spanish papers are free and distributed across the city. "It's really aimed at just helping (Hispanics) assimilate in the community," Hawley says. In Wapello County, where Ottumwa is the county seat, 7.4 percent of the population is Hispanic or Latino, according to a 2006 report from the State Data Center of Iowa. So as far as the regular newspaper for Ottumwa, Iowa, being bilingual, Hawley said: "That's not true." "He was a little confused," Hawley said of Tancredo. "We had him in for the editorial board and explained it. He didn't really say much. ... He continued to say the same thing even after we explained it." We took this information to the Tancredo campaign, and press secretary Alan Moore disagreed with our findings. "We stand by our statement," Moore said. He added, "How do you define regular?" We'll skip the linguistics discussion and rule Tancredo's statement False.
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The number is as much a part of Red Sox lore as the Green Monster, Fenway franks and the curse of the Bambino. Eighty-six. That's how many years passed between the team's 1918 World Series victory and its next one in 2004. It's a number that has been used in so many descriptions of suffering fans ("86 years of despair and disappointment" . . . "86-year drought" . . . "86 long and depressing years") that it's iconic. Do a Google search on the phrase "86 years," as we did, and five of the first 10 listings relate to the Red Sox. But when Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts and a self-described "true-suffering fan" of the Sox, spoke about his team at the CNN/YouTube debate on Nov. 28, 2007, he used a different number: Eighty-seven. In fact, he used the wrong number twice in a row. "Eighty-seven long years," Romney said. "We waited 87 long years. And true suffering Red Sox fans that my family and I are, we could not have been more happy than to see the Red Sox win the World Series, except by being able to beat the Yankees when they were ahead three games to none." It wasn't exactly the magnitude of Bill Buckner's blunder in Game 6 of the '86 World Series (there's that number again!), when the ball rolled through his legs, letting the winning run score. But to Sox fans, it was a significant mistake. And so, even though he was only off by a year, we award Romney a False. A Sox fan should know better.
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During a Republican presidential debate Nov. 28, 2007, a questioner asked Mike Huckabee about his support for a 2005 measure in Arkansas that would have granted in-state tuition to the children of illegal immigrants. Though the bill never made it out of the legislature, critics still question his support of it. Huckabee described the law's requirements as stringent, applying only to students "if you'd sat in our schools from the time you're 5 or 6 years old and you had become an A-plus student, you'd completed the core curriculum, you were an exceptional student, and you also had to be drug- and alcohol-free β€” and the other provision, you had to be applying for citizenship." That's quite a number of restrictions. Did the bill outline all that? No. The bill, proposed by Rep. Joyce Elliott, D-Little Rock, said that students had to have spent three years in Arkansas high schools and graduated, and they had to sign an affidavit saying they intended to pursue citizenship. Then they would be eligible for in-state tuition and a popular state scholarship program, the Academic Challenge Scholarship, just like their fellow classmates. Huckabee conflates the proposed law with rules for the scholarship, which does have requirements for a core curriculum and drug-testing. Maybe Huckabee was confused on which programs he was talking about; he had mentioned the Academic Challenge Scholarship by name a few moments earlier. But even granting a mix-up, Huckabee is plain wrong about the A-plus average β€” the scholarship requires a 3.0 out of 4.0. And there's no requirement for attending state schools since age 5 or 6. We award Huckabee a Barely True. Editor's note: This statement was rated Barely True when it was published. On July 27, 2011, we changed the name for the rating to Mostly False.
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At the CNN/YouTube debate in St. Petersburg on Nov. 28, 2007, Mitt Romney tried to use Rudy Giuliani's words to make him look soft on illegal immigration. The full quote from Romney: "The mayor said -- and I quote almost verbatim -- which is 'if you happen to be in this country in an undocumented status - and that means you're here illegally - then we welcome you here. We want you here. We'll protect you here.'" Romney is referring to a statement Giuliani made at a 1994 news conference: "If you come here and you work hard and you happen to be in an undocumented status, you're one of the people who we want in this city. You're somebody that we want to protect, and we want you to get out from under what is often a life of being like a fugitive, which is really unfair." Romney says that shows Giuliani is too welcoming to illegal immigrants and that his policies made New York a "sanctuary city." We've addressed the sanctuary city debate in this item and this article, so we'll simply focus here on the quote. Indeed, Romney accurately summarized what Giuliani said. The quote came from a 1994 story in the New York Times that was headlined "New York Officials Welcome Immigrants, Legal or Illegal." The article noted that Giuliani had given a "spirited defense of illegal immigrants, virtually urging them to settle in New York City." It quoted him saying, "Some of the hardest-working and most productive people in this city are undocumented aliens. " Giuliani has not denied the comment but, in discussing immigration, has emphasized the need for more border security and tougher enforcement by the federal government. We find that Romney accurately described Giuliani's comment and find Romney's statement to be True. The Giuliani campaign has responded several times to Romney's attacks on "sanctuary cities" by alleging that it was Romney who was weak on immigration because he did not speak up or take action against Massachusetts cities that had similar policies to New York's. Giuliani is on solid ground with this attack. There's no evidence that Romney spoke up or took action against those cities. But Romney's inaction does not necessarily confirm the Giuliani campaign's larger point –- that Romney was soft on illegal immigration. Late in his term, Romney approved a plan to deputize state troopers to help enforce immigration laws, although the plan was not implemented because it was rescinded by his successor, Gov. Deval Patrick. We expect to see this allegation repeated as the campaign goes on, though. The Giuliani campaign has apparently been searching for cities with policies of not turning in illegal immigrants; they recently upped their count of Massachusetts sanctuary cities from three to six. We rate Giuliani's claim as Mostly True because, although the facts are right, there's not enough evidence to back up Giuliani's larger point that Romney was not aggressive on illegal immigration.
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Former Sen. John Edwards says he cares passionately about rural schools. He is, in fact, a product of them. Felt like a "hick" as the first member of his poor family to go to college. And Edwards wants to do more for rural schools, to give more children like him the chance to have experiences like his. But this statement, made during his education platform speech, falls flat on fact. One need only to look at the very sources his campaign cites as his supporting documents β€” the National Education Association and the National Center for Education Statistics β€” to see that the former vice presidential candidate and his team read the headlines, but not the details. The NEA actually says on its Web site that rural β€” and small β€” schools account for 40 percent of the nation's public school students. In an e-mail, a spokesman for the NEA said rural schools alone enroll about 20 percent of the nation's students. That fits with the National Center for Education Statistics breakdown of figures in a June 2007 report. That report shows that rural schools account for 31 percent of the nation's schools and enroll 21.3 percent of the nation's students. Those schools get 18 percent of all federal funding, not 22 percent, the NCES report further shows. That's actually lower than what Edwards said, but since the enrollment is half of what Edwards claimed, the big disparity he was seeking to illustrate just isn't there. Using sources provided by his own campaign, we rate this Edwards statement to be "False."
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A new TV ad from the Republican National Committee picks up where the McCain campaign's James Bond ad left off, portraying Sen. Barack Obama as an opponent of lower gas prices and new sources of energy. The ad begins with a honeycomb of scenes: traffic, gas prices, the sun. Sen. John McCain is shown against a green forest as the honeycomb fills with pictures of solar energy cells, a windmill, a nuclear cooling tower. "Record gas prices. A climate in crisis," the announcer says. "John McCain says solve it now with a balanced plan: Alternative energy, conservation, suspending the gas tax, and more production here at home. He's pushing his own party to face climate change." When Obama appears, the announcer says, "But Barack Obama? For conservation, but he just says no to lower gas taxes, no to nuclear, no to more production. No new solutions. Barack Obama: Just the party line." The screen says, "No Lower Gas Taxes . . . No Nuclear Power . . . No New Offshore Production . . . No New Solutions." When we examined the McCain campaign's James Bond-inspired ad about a week ago, we found it was right about Obama's stance on gas taxes and offshore drilling but was Pants on Fire wrong about his positions on nuclear power, electric cars and innovation. The topics in the RNC ad will be new to viewers who haven't seen the 007 Web ad, so here's how they claims rate: β€’ The RNC ad is right on gas taxes. Obama opposes the McCain proposal for a summertime suspension of the federal gas tax. Obama has said he doubts the benefit would be passed to consumers and, even if it were, they would get only 30 cents a day. β€’ The ad wrongly says Obama opposes nuclear power. In fact, turn to page 4 in Obama's energy plan and you'll find he supports "Safe and Secure Nuclear Energy," although he emphasizes the importance of securing nuclear fuel and finding safe places to store nuclear waste. β€’ The ad is correct that Obama opposes expanding the offshore production of oil. β€’ It is wrong to say Obama offers "no new solutions." Obama's 11-page energy program is filled with proposals such as incentives for communities to invest in biofuels refineries, more emphasis on clean coal and expanded research for biofuels, and solar and wind power. So let's check the score for the RNC: two right, two wrong. Overall, that sounds to us like the ad is Half True. The number may seem astounding, but according to the Centers for Disease Control, it's on target. A CDC report concludes that in 2004, 69 percent of African-American children were born to women who hadn't tied the knot. That's the highest number for all races. The lowest: 15.5 percent for Asian and Pacific-Islander. About 46 percent of Hispanic children were born to unmarried women, and 24.5 percent of white children. The figure is 36 percent for all races. Preliminary numbers for 2005 show similar percentages.
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Rudy Giuliani has repeatedly said that he cut taxes 23 times while he was mayor of New York. He repeated the claim during a debate in Dearborn, Mich., on Oct. 9, 2007. The problem is, he was opposed to one of the tax cuts he lists, and several other cuts were championed by others or involved state funds β€” not city funds. The most glaring example is the expiration of the 12.5 percent personal income tax surcharge on New York City residents. Peter Vallone, then the city council speaker and a candidate for governor, championed letting the tax expire, while Giuliani opposed him. After about five months, the mayor and the city council came to a budget agreement, and Giuliani changed his mind and let the tax expire. Some New Yorkers have disputed whether the mayor may appropriately take credit for the STAR program, a property tax rebate that Gov. George Pataki initiated and paid for with state funds, according to an analysis of the cuts by the New York Daily News. The Annenberg Political FactCheck, a fact-checking Web site, looked at the "23 tax cuts" line when the campaign used the figure in a Giuliani radio ad. FactCheck concluded, based on information from New York City's Independent Budget Office, that eight of the tax cuts Giuliani boasts about actually should be credited to state government initiatives. In addition, FactCheck said he did not deserve credit for the personal income tax surcharge and that overall, he could rightly claim only 14 of the 23 tax cuts. The Giuliani campaign has argued that Giuliani deserves credit for any tax cuts under his watch. Giuliani made the case himself to a reporter in an exchange that was captured on video. In the video, Giuliani said he deserves credit for the tax cuts because he publicly argued for them and lobbied for them, and that he was the chief executive of the tax base that was affected. Still, we find it's a stretch for Giuliani to personally take credit for 23 when many of them were primarily pushed by others. So we find his claim to be Half True.
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During a Republican debate in Dearborn, Mich., on Oct. 9, 2007, Fred Thompson was asked to explain his previous comments about whether Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. He replied that Saddam had used them against the Kurds and had nuclear reactors in the early 1980s. Thompson added, "The Iraq Study Group reported that (Saddam) had designs on reviving his nuclear program, which he had started once upon a time." The Iraq Study Group was a bipartisan panel created by Congress to recommend a better U.S. strategy in Iraq. The panel was headed by former Secretary of State James A. Baker III and Lee Hamilton, a former member of Congress who chaired the House Foreign Affairs Committee. In December 2006, the group released its report, The Way Forward: A New Approach, which recommended a new U.S. strategy. The 142-page report focused on the future of Iraq and did not address whether Saddam wanted to restart a nuclear program. So we find Thompson's claim to be False. It's possible that Thompson was referring to the Iraq Survey Group, a CIA panel that was formed to investigate whether there were weapons of mass destruction or the intent to produce WMDs in Saddam Hussein's Iraq. The report found that Saddam did not produce or possess any weapons of mass destruction for more than a decade before the U.S.-led invasion, but that he "aspired to develop a nuclear capability β€” in an incremental fashion, irrespective of international pressure and the resulting economic risks." In a Clinton campaign ad airing in Iowa and New Hampshire, an announcer says the New York senator has been a strong advocate for workers who responded to the 9/11 attacks. "She stood by ground zero workers who sacrificed their health after so many sacrificed their lives and kept standing till this administration took action," the announcer says. As you might expect for a senator from the state where the deadliest attack occurred, the record indicates she has been a consistent advocate for workers who responded to the World Trade Center and cleaned up the debris after the two buildings were destroyed. Soon after the attacks, Clinton and fellow New York Sen. Charles Schumer pushed legislation to aid New York City's recovery. She also has been a proponent of government programs to track the health of workers who were exposed to smoke and dust at the site. The doctors who monitored the workers' health credited Clinton with steering $12-million to a Centers for Disease Control program for that work. Clinton has testified at hearings on the health status of 9/11 workers, and she has publicly criticized the Environmental Protection Agency for its early statement that the air at the World Trade Center site was safe. There is considerable evidence that she has been active on issues to help and protect the workers, so we find her claim to be True.
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John McCain might be right, but we don't think so. McCain's campaign didn't return repeated calls and e-mails to confirm where the 50,000 number came from. But it clearly didn't come from eBay. "We're not exactly sure where he got the number. We don't even calculate according to the U.S.," said eBay spokeswoman Deanna Monestero. "I don't want to say it's wrong, but I can't trace it." The latest figures for the U.S. date back to 2005, when an A.C. Nielsen study revealed 724,000 Americans used eBay to make some money. But the survey didn't break down the number to figure out how many were just making a few bucks compared with the number making a living on eBay. Back in 2003, a similar survey found that 430,000 Americans made all or some of their income from the internet auction site. But once again, the survey didn't break down the "all" and "some" income numbers. That same year, Jim Griffith, who is eBay's so-called "dean of education" (who knew there was one?), was quoted in a Colorado newspaper as saying, "More than 20,000 people earn their living selling on eBay in the United States." But a company spokeswoman couldn't say where that number came from, either. These days, the company only keeps track of eBay entrepreneurs worldwide. That number, based on a 2006 Nielsen study, is estimated at 1.3-million. But again, it doesn't distinguish between full-time and part-time on-line auctioneers. The bottom line: Lots of people make money on eBay, but how many depend on it to pay their bills remains unclear. Edwards, aiming to win rural voters' support in early-voting states including Iowa and South Carolina, is trying to make the case that the government ought to pay more attention to their education needs. So he talks about how troubled the rural schools are. But he sometimes overstates the case. In this single sentence, Edwards makes three distinct claims about the state of affairs in rural education. On accuracy, he goes two for three. First, consider dropout rates. Yes, rural schools have a high rate, 11 percent, as the June 2007 report by the National Center for Education Statistics shows. Just not the highest. The dropout rate in urban areas is worse: 13 percent. But Edwards is right when he says that rural schools have the lowest college enrollment rates in the country. Only 27 percent of students coming from rural schools enrolled in college in 2004-05, according to the report, well below the 37 percent rate in cities and suburbs, and lower than the 32 percent in towns. And he also has it right on teacher pay. The federal report is pretty clear: "Public school teachers in rural areas earned, on average, lower salaries in 2003-04 than their peers in towns, suburbs and cities." Taking it all into consideration, we rate Edwards' statements on rural education as "Half True."
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In a TV ad airing in Iowa and New Hampshire, Sen. Hillary Clinton portrays herself as a leader on health care. "Hillary stood up for universal health care when almost no one else would," the announcer says, "and kept standing till 6-million kids had coverage." Indeed, the New York senator has a record as an advocate for health care reform. When she was first lady, President Bill Clinton appointed her to head the President's Task Force on National Health Reform. But the group formulated a plan that ended up going down in defeat. It was one of the most significant defeats of President Clinton's first term. Critics of the Clinton health plan, mostly Republicans, focused on her role and mocked the proposal as Hillary Care. The name has stuck and made a resurgence in the past few weeks since now-candidate Clinton has proposed her own plan. But did she stand up for universal health care "when almost no one else did"? That's a stretch. The president obviously also favored it in 1992, but so did every other major Democratic candidate β€” Jerry Brown, Tom Harkin, Bob Kerrey and Paul Tsongas. It also had support in Congress, though not enough to pass. So we find the "almost no one else" claim to be an exaggeration. For the second part of the assertion, the Clinton campaign said the "6-million kids" refers to those who would benefit from the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), which passed in 1997 and was funded with cigarette taxes. SCHIP provides federal funding to states, which then put up their own money and set rules to provide health care for uninsured children. Much of the credit for SCHIP usually goes to Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., who shepherded the legislation through a Republican-controlled Congress. But the Clinton campaign says she used her influence behind the scenes to push for SCHIP, and there is evidence to support that. Shortly after the legislation passed, the New York Times reported, "Participants in the campaign for the health bill both on and off Capitol Hill said the first lady had played a crucial behind-the-scenes role in lining up White House support." We don't dispute that Clinton worked behind the scenes for SCHIP, but the TV ad gives her disproportionate credit for the entire program. We find that the ad overstates her role on this count and also on the broader issue of universal health care. And so we find the claim to be Half True.
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In responding to a question about testing from education, Sen. Hillary Clinton said she "led the effort" to improve Arkansas schools in 1983. It might seem an easy fact to prove. But 24-year-old records from Arkansas don't pop up on the Internet, and folks from the state's Department of Education apologized that someone apparently had thrown out the supporting documents. So we turned to press clippings from the time, and to the folks who were there. They unequivocally state that Clinton, who was Arkansas First Lady at the time, did chair the state's 1983 Education Standards Committee at a time when Arkansas was trying to move up from the bottom of the nation's many school-related rankings, from student performance to teacher pay. After meetings in all 75 counties, the committee made several recommendations. These included raising the dropout age, requiring all high schools to offer advanced math and science courses, and mandating smaller class sizes. To pay for the changes, it also proposed a sales tax increase. And to win support for these ideas, Clinton and her husband, then Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, called for competency tests for all teachers β€” something the teachers hated but the public loved. "Over and over again I was asked, 'What are you going to do about all the incompetent teachers?'" Mrs. Clinton told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in 1984. The initiatives won resounding approval in a special session of the Legislature in late 1983. But was Mrs. Clinton a chairwoman in name only? Or was she truly the change agent? "She shepherded it through and was absolutely instrumental in getting it approved through the legislative process and accepted in general by the public," said Peggy Nabors, president of the state teachers union at the time, who now is leaning toward supporting Clinton for president. The state has made many education reforms since, and its national ranking has risen to the middle of the pack. Arkansas School Boards Association executive director Dan Farley, a Clinton backer, said the 1983 initiative lit the flame for such changes in a state that didn't have education on its front burner before. "We still have a way to go," he said. "But the earliest flickering started then."
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As 2007 wrapped up, Mitt Romney started airing television ads attacking John McCain, who is polling neck and neck with Romney in New Hampshire. As the new year began, McCain fought back with two Web ads rapping Romney on his foreign policy experience. The ads claim Romney says the next president doesn't need foreign policy experience. Romney has never uttered those words, but here's what he did say on the Fox News program Hannity & Colmes : "If we want somebody who has a lot of experience in foreign policy, we can simply go to the State Department and pluck out one of the tens of thousands of people who work there." Romney, whose comments came in the wake of the assassination of Pakistan opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, also told CNN's Anderson Cooper: "If foreign policy experience were the measure for selecting a president, we'd just go to the State Department and pick up one of the thousands and thousands of people who've spent their whole life in foreign policy." That has become Romney's standard response to questions about his foreign policy experience. He says the nation needs a leader rather than a specialist in foreign affairs and often cites Ronald Reagan as an example of a strong leader without a foreign policy background. By contrast, McCain plays up his foreign policy credentials from his time in the Senate, especially his role as an outspoken supporter of additional troops in Iraq. It's clear that Romney didn't say exactly what McCain has attributed to him. It also is clear that while McCain doesn't quote him directly, he's taking Romney's words a bit too literally. The question then is how to judge the accuracy of what McCain has charged. Did Romney say a president doesn't need foreign policy experience? Mostly, yes he did.
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During an October 2007 debate, Sen. Chris Dodd was asked about Sen. Hillary Clinton's electability, which has been a persistent question in her bid for the White House. "Whether it's fair or not fair, the fact of the matter is that my colleague from New York, Senator Clinton, there are 50 percent of the American public that say they're not going to vote for her," Dodd said. "We as a party certainly have to take that into consideration." Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, were reviled by some conservative segments of the electorate by the time he left office in 2001. And Gallup Organization polling has showed that the percentage of people with a negative opinion of Hillary Clinton has scored in the 40s β€” or higher β€” consistently since 2000. Dodd isn't the first to question whether Clinton could win a national election, or to note how polarizing she is. Among others: β€’ "The fact that Senator Clinton is a polarizing figure in American politics is not even a point of debate,'' said David Axelrod, a senior campaign adviser to Barack Obama. "It's an empirical fact.'' β€’ Republican strategist Karl Rove called Clinton "fatally flawed" because of her high negatives. In the matter of Dodd's quote, a Zogby International survey released in October 2007 reported 50 percent of voters would refuse to vote for her. A Harris Poll in March 2007 had the same result. However, that statistic alone doesn't tell the whole story of whether or not Clinton could win in the general election. Clinton generates strong ill-will among Republicans but she also draws raves by Democrats. A Gallup Poll released Dec. 19, 2007, shows Clinton has advantages against leading Republican candidates Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney in hypothetical matchups. She led most Republicans narrowly in Rasmussen Reports polling in December 2007, and in some cases better than other leading Democrats. "While she may be polarizing, she is definitely electable. If Sen. Clinton is the Democratic nominee, she has a very strong base of support and very strong opposition," said pollster Scott Rasmussen, president of Rasmussen Reports. The Gallup Poll also found that Clinton would not have to look far to find a polarizing candidate who took the White House. Her husband, Bill, won in 1992 when his negatives outstripped his positives in spring polling. George W. Bush won re-election in 2004 with high unfavorability ratings, although the Gallup Poll had higher positive ratings for him than negative ratings early in 2004. In 2007, Clinton's favorability went from 48 percent in August to 51 percent in December, noted Jeffrey Jones, managing editor of the Gallup Poll. "I would say with her favorability ratings now she could be electable," Jones said. "It would definitely be to her advantage if the Republican Party would nominate a candidate with high unfavorability." So Dodd is accurate when he cites polls that show 50 percent of the American public won't vote for Clinton. But the rest of the story is that it's not a dealbreaker as far as electibility goes.
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In the waning days of the Iowa campaign, dark horse Democratic candidate Sen. Joe Biden has gone to the airwaves to distinguish himself as a steady leader with broad foreign affairs experience. One of his ads claims that he ended genocide in Bosnia. He explained in a 1997 speech: "Appalled by the naked Serbian aggression and genocidal attacks on Bosnian civilians, in September 1992 I called for a 'lift and strike' policy. ... "My views were not widely shared at that time. As the war escalated β€” with massacres, 'ethnic cleansing,' and rapes β€” a few other senators, including Bob Dole and Joe Lieberman, joined my call for action. But it took more than two years of failed diplomacy β€” and a quarter-million killed and 2-million homeless β€” before we finally came around to the 'lift and strike' policy in the fall of 1995. Guess what? The policy worked!" "Lift and strike" is shorthand for the policy of lifting the U.S. arms embargo against the Bosnian government and launching military strikes against the Bosnian Serbs accused of genocide. It's clear Biden was among the earliest and most vocal members of Congress to advocate an end to the violence. But it's wrong for him to take sole credit for ending the genocide. "He was a constant pest to push people in that direction," said Ivo H. Daalder, a former director for European affairs on the National Security Council and author of the book Getting to Dayton: The Making of America's Bosnia Policy. "There is no doubt that Joe Biden wanted to end the genocide and was willing to use force to end it before either the Bush or Clinton administrations." But Biden's influence remained that of one of 100 senators, noted Daalder, who now serves as an adviser to Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign: "The war was ended by a whole bunch of people, most of whom were in the administration." Indeed, it was former Assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke who was nominated for a 1995 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to bring the war in Bosnia to a close. It was Senate Majority Leader Dole who in 1995 filed the bill that Biden co-sponsored ending the arms embargo against Bosnia. Passage of that bill helped pave the way for President Bill Clinton to change his Bosnia policy. NATO, led by Gen. Wesley Clark, played its role, too, as did many other U.S. and international leaders. So yes, Biden wanted to stop the genocide. He played an influential role in the debate. But he didn't end the war himself, as his ad implies. We rate his statement Barely True. Editor's note: This statement was rated Barely True when it was published. On July 27, 2011, we changed the name for the rating to Mostly False.
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Trying to tap the popular ire over gas prices, Barack Obama told an Iowa crowd the day after Christmas 2007, "Gas prices have never been higher, and Exxon Mobil's profits have never been higher." He's wrong on both counts. Gas prices have soared this year, and so have the profits of Exxon Mobil and other companies. But in saying they've "never been higher," Obama overstates the case. The price for a gallon of gas peaked in March 1981 at $1.42 a gallon, said Jonathan Cogan, a senior analyst for the Energy Information Administration. Sounds cheap, but factor in inflation and that's a whopping $3.38 per gallon. Two days before Obama gave his speech, the Energy Information Administration put the price of gas at $2.98 per gallon β€” 40 cents less than the inflation-adjusted 1981 price. Even without inflation, Obama had it wrong. In May 2007, prices hit $3.218 per gallon, according to the Energy Information Administration, which has tracked the average weekly price of gasoline for decades. PolitiFact will grant that gas prices are uncomfortably high for many of us. Does that mean Exxon Mobil is raking in more dough than ever? Not at the moment. The company did earn record annual profits of $39.5-billion in 2006. Their record-breaking streak continued through the first quarter of 2007, according to the company's quarterly statements. But the company's second quarter sales fell billions short of Wall Street expectations. Profits declined in the third quarter. For the first nine months of 2007, profit fell 1 percent from the same period in 2006. The Irving, Texas, company still posted healthy profits of nearly $29-billion, but Obama was wrong. Exxon Mobil's profits have been higher. Too bad Obama didn't give his speech in January 2007. It would have been half true. But this week, he's just plain wrong. UPDATE: On Feb. 1, 2008, Exxon Mobil announced a $40.6-billion net profit -- a record. But Obama made his statement more than a month earlier and, as we explain above, the company had not released record profits at that time -- nor were gas prices at record highs. So we're going to keep our False ruling, but we will acknowledge that Obama was prescient, at least as it relates to Exxon Mobil's financial performance.
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John Edwards, lagging in the polls in South Carolina, said he expects to win its primary anyway based on past experience. "I won the South Carolina primary in 2004, and I was way behind in the polls at this stage in 2004," Edwards said. That certainly was the case nationally. In national polls conducted during November and December 2003, Edwards lagged significantly behind Howard Dean, Wesley Clark, Richard Gephardt and Joe Lieberman. But the poll numbers were a little different in South Carolina. A few polls showed Edwards trailing, but at least two state polls showed Edwards the leading named candidate after "Don't Know" or "Undecided." On the other hand, today Edwards seems to be trailing Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in South Carolina in every published poll we were able to find. Edwards didn't say whether he meant national or local polls in his interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network. Given the two polls that showed Edwards leading South Carolina, we can't give him full marks and instead award him Mostly True.
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Fred Thompson's campaign is trying to take the much-touted health insurance program that Mitt Romney helped create as governor of Massachusetts and turn it into a liability with conservative Republican voters who dominate the party's primary elections. The Thompson campaign, which has been playing up the former U.S. senator's antiabortion stances, sent out this e-mail in November 2007: "So what sort of services does Romney's health care plan provide? Per the state Web site: $50 co-pay for abortions. "While court mandate requires Massachusetts to cover 'medically necessary' abortions in state-subsidized health plans, Mitt Romney's plan covers ALL abortions -- no restrictions." And it's true. One of the crowning moments of Mitt Romney's tenure as governor of Massachusetts was the creation of Commonwealth Care, a state-run, state-subsidized health insurance program for people making up to 300 percent of the federal poverty level. Although private insurers provide the coverage, the state helps pay the bills and determines what services must be covered. That list includes abortion. And the co-pay is indeed $50. Romney has recently sought to distance himself from some details of the plan, but he has touted it in debates and interviews as a model for the nation. "I love it. It's a fabulous program," Romney said during a May 3, 2007, Republican debate in Simi Valley, Calif. "Now I know there's some people who wonder about it. Sen. Kennedy at the signing of the bill, we were all there together, he said, 'You know, if you've got Mitt Romney and Ted Kennedy agreeing to the same bill, that means one thing -- one of us didn't read it.' "But I helped write it. And I knew it well. ...The market can work to solve our health care needs, and 27 other states are working on health care programs now. It's a great program, a great opportunity for the entire country." Romney's campaign counters that the decision about what services to cover was ultimately left up to the independent Commonwealth Care Authority. But Romney was well-represented: Of the six policy-making members of the authority's 10-member board, half are appointed by the governor, and half by the state attorney general. Half of the ex-officio members also are appointed by the governor, including the chairman -- the governor's secretary of administration and finance -- and the state insurance commission. Although Romney shares responsiblity with the state legislature and the program's board, Commonwealth Care was his pet project, and he takes credit for it. We find Thompson's claims true.
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Although the statement is technically correct, the facts clearly don't support the point that former Sen. Fred Thompson is trying to make about his rival, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. It is true the Massachusetts state law passed under Romney's leadership gave the Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts a seat on an advisory board for MassHealth, the state's Medicaid health insurance program for the poor. But the board advises MassHealth on service costs and reimbursement rates, not policy, and the board's members represent the state's major providers of medical care, including the extended care industry, physicians, hospitals and community health centers, as well Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood is Massachusetts' largest provider of sexual and reproductive health services, with 55,000 patient visits last year at four clinics statewide, the group says. It does perform abortions, but Angus McQuilken, vice president of public affairs, says gynecological exams, birth control, treatment for sexually transmitted diseases, pregnancy testing and the like make up the bulk of its services for MassHealth patients. MassHealth only pays for abortions deemed "medically necessary," or in the case of rape or incest. Thompson's campaign further charges that although Planned Parenthood got a seat on the board, antiabortion groups did not. That's true, too. But by the nature of the advisory board, there would be no reason for such groups to get a seat: Although some antiabortion groups provide pregnancy counseling and adoption services, they are not major providers of health care. Editor's note: This statement was rated Barely True when it was published. On July 27, 2011, we changed the name for the rating to Mostly False. The Republican National Committee has developed a "Spend-O-Meter" to argue that the United States cannot afford all of the proposals Sen. Hillary Clinton has made as a Democratic presidential candidate. The RNC has estimated Clinton's proposals would cost some $777.6-billion during her first term. The Republicans did a credible job in tallying up Clinton's plans, but they did make one huge mistake. Clinton, at one point in 2007, talked about offering every newborn child born a $5,000 bond as part of an effort to encourage savings for such things as college tuition. The estimated cost would be $80-billion over four years. The RNC included the proposal in its Spend-O-Meter. The only problem is that Clinton never formally proposed it and indeed told the Boston Globe last month that the plan did not have as much political support as her other plans to pay for college.
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Hillary Clinton attacked Barack Obama's health care plan at a debate, saying it "would leave 15 million Americans out." Clinton is right in her broader point that Obama's plan does not include a mandate for people to have health insurance, as hers does. He believes his plan would lower health care costs enough that most of the 47 million Americans without coverage would be able to find a plan they could afford. But with no mandate, some people would inevitably go without coverage. But how many? Clinton says 15 million; health care experts it's impossible to come up with a reliable number without more details on Obama's plan. Clinton's 15 million number could be a reasonable estimate -- it's 30 percent of those currently without insurance -- but it's at best a guess. For that we reason, we rate her claim half true. After Rudy Giuliani attacked Mitt Romney for rising crime rates in Massachusetts, Romney shot back: "The truth of the matter is that during my administration, the FBI's crime statistics show that violent crime was reduced in Massachusetts by 7 percent. So he's wrong again on the facts." Take apart the FBI crime figures, and you'll see that Romney is right. But Giuliani is also right on a couple of points, particularly on rising murder and robberies. Here's how the numbers break down: Romney became governor in January 2003 and left office in January 2007. Comparing FBI crime statistics in Massachusetts for 2002 and 2006, we can calculate how crime rates changed during the Romney administration. To count violent crime, the FBI includes murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery and aggravated assault. In 2002, that number was 31,137 in Massachusetts. In 2006, it was 28,775. That means violent crime declined 7.6 percent, just like Romney claims. But let's take a closer look at murders and robberies. Murders went up from 173 in 2002 to 186 in 2006, an increase of 7.5 percent. The murder rate β€” the number of people murdered per 100,000 people β€” moved up from 2.7 to 2.9. Robberies increased more than murders. Robberies in Massachusetts increased from 7,169 to 8,047, an increase of 12.2 percent. The robbery rate increased from 111.5 to 125. So what made the violent crime rate go down if murders and robberies went up? The biggest category decline under Romney was aggravated assault, which declined from 22,018 to 18,800, a drop of 14.6 percent. Given these numbers, Giuliani is right when he says murders and robberies went up, but wrong when he says violent crime went up. Romney is correct when he says violent crime in Massachusetts declined, so we rate his claim True.
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Arkansas does indeed have an amendment to its state constitution concerning human life, but Huckabee overstates the impact of the amendment. Here's what it says: "The policy of Arkansas is to protect the life of every unborn child from conception until birth, to the extent permitted by the federal Constitution." Huckabee's statement that the amendment says "everything in the world possible" must be done to protect the unborn is pretty sharply limited by the phrase "to the extent permitted by the federal Constitution." At the moment, the Roe v. Wade decision means the federal Constitution permits abortion. It also is a slight overstatement to say the Arkansas amendment declares a belief that life begins at conception, though that certainly is implied. We also would note that he got the amendment number wrong. It is Amendment 68 that deals with abortion. Amendment 65 deals with revenue bonds. Editor's note: This statement was rated Barely True when it was published. On July 27, 2011, we changed the name for the rating to Mostly False. In a Republican debate on Sept. 5, 2007, Brownback cited an argument that social-values conservatives have been making for years about gay marriage: that it causes declining marriage rates and more births to unmarried couples. But the trends of declining marriage rates and births out of wedlock started before gay unions were legalized. M.V. Lee Badgett, an economist at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and the research director of the Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation Law and Public Policy at UCLA, wrote a detailed study that examined rates for marriage and birth rates in Scandinavian countries. "Marriage rates, divorce rates, and nonmarital birth rates have been changing in Scandinavia, Europe, and the United States for the past thirty years," Badgett writes. "But those changes have occurred in all countries, regardless of whether or not they adopted same-sex partnership laws, and these trends were underway well before the passage of laws that gave same-sex couples rights." In, Denmark, Sweden and Norway, same-sex partnerships were legalized in 1989, 1993 and 1994, respectively. Generally speaking, gay partners in these countries have the legal and financial protections of marriage, but they are not allowed to marry in church or adopt children. The county-level statistics Brownback cites about first-born births are correct, Badgett said, but that trend also started years before the legalization of same-sex unions. Conservative author Stanley Kurtz is a prominent advocate of the argument that gay marriage hurts heterosexual marriage. Kurtz responded to Badgett's study by arguing that marriage rates in Scandinavia and other European countries are still declining, and that the legalization of same-sex partnerships "reinforces and intensifies parental cohabitation." But even Kurtz acknowledges that the decline began before the legalization of same-sex unions. Β  Editor's note: This statement was rated Barely True when it was published. On July 27, 2011, we changed the name for the rating to Mostly False.
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At a Republican debate on Sept. 5, 2007, Romney criticized a provision in a Senate bill that would allow some immigrants to remain in the United States. His full quote: "The Z-visa that was offered in that Senate bill let everybody who's here illegally, other than criminals, stay here for the rest of their lives. And that may not be technically amnesty, but it is certainly amnesty in fact." But that's an inaccurate description of the bill. Only immigrants who meet certain requirements will be able to stay here "for the rest of their lives." For instance, immigrants who have entered before January 1, 2007 are eligible to apply for Z visas. AND Romney is incorrect in stating that illegal immigrants who wish to remain in the U.S. must only prove that they are not criminals. Illegal immigrants who wish to work in the U.S. must pass a background check, pay fines, be consistently employed, and pay taxes. Those seeking permanent citizenship must return to their country of origin and apply for permanent resident status through their applicant as well as pay a $4,000 application fee. At the Sept. 9, 2007 Univision debate in Miami, Democratic candidate Dennis Kucinich said Hispanics lag behind other Americans in health insurance coverage. He said, "34 percent of Hispanics don't have any health care at all, don't have any health insurance." We interpret his statement as a reference to health insurance coverage -- not a claim that Hispanics are denied all health care -- and find it to be accurate. The January 2007 report Key Facts: Race, Ethnicity & Medical Care, published by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, notes that 34 percent of Hispanics are without health insurance coverage. The report cites 2005 estimates by the Urban Institute and Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured. The report also notes that of all racial/ethnic minority groups, Hispanics have "the highest percentage of uninsured, and the lowest percentage of people with employer coverage." The 2005 National Healthcare Disparities Report from the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality said that Hispanics have less access to health care than non-Hispanic whites and are more likely to receive poorer-quality care.
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A wildly popular YouTube video featuring a scantily clad "Obama Girl" -- with no connection to Barack Obama's campaign -- criticizes Rudy Giuliani for marrying his cousin. Barelypolitical.com produced the video "Debate 08: Obama Girl vs. Giuliani Girl," a follow up to their successful video "I got a crush on Obama," which featured Amber Lee Ettinger lip-synching a song about the Democratic presidential candidate. In the debate video, another dancer is introduced and the two argue about the merits of their respective candidates. At one point, Obama Girl raps, "Giuliani Girl, just stop your fussing, at least Obama didn't marry his cousin." We find Obama Girl's claims are accurate. In 1968, Giuliani wed his second cousin, Regina Peruggi, who was the daughter of his father's first cousin. (Think of your son/daughter marrying your cousin's daughter/son.) Giuliani at different points labeled the family connection as "second cousins once removed" and "third cousins," before he was corrected, according to news reports. In a 1993 memo for his mayoral campaign, a Giuliani strategist noted the "weirdness" factor of the marriage, according to a copy posted on the Smoking Gun Web site. But such a marriage is completely legal. In New York, even first cousins can wed. Robin Bennett, senior genetic counselor at the University of Washington, said little scientific research exists about the risk of developmental difficulties for the offspring of second cousins. But she said, "for second cousins, the risks are likely similar to the risks of couples from the same ethnic population who also may have common ancestors." Giuliani and Peruggi did not have any children, and the marriage ended after 14 years.
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Attempting to portray Hillary Clinton as a big spender, the Republican National Committee recently unveiled a "Spend-O-Meter" to tally up Clinton's policy proposals. "If Sen. Hillary Clinton could enact all of her campaign proposals, taxpayers would be faced with financing more than $777.6-billion in new spending over one White House term," the RNC says on its Web site, where the meter is prominently featured. Putting the RNC's Spend-O-Meter to the Truth-O-Meter test, we find the Republicans are doing a reasonably good job of accounting for Clinton's spending proposals. In 19 out of 24 examples cited by the RNC, the Spend-O-Meter correctly explained Clinton's proposals. However, in one case, the RNC includes $80-billion baby bond proposal that Clinton quickly dropped after talking about it. Since Clinton never formally proposed the idea, you can subtract $80-billion from the $777.6-billion. We realize the RNC had to make some assumptions to keep the arithmetic simple. For instance, their calculations assume that each program becomes law at the very start of Clinton's first term, allowing the Spend-O-Meter to add things up over four full years. Of course, it can't really happen that way, but for purposes of keeping tabs on the cost of Clinton's proposals it's within reason. It's also true that the RNC doesn't note that some of Clinton's proposals, already in legislation in Congress, have drawn the support of some Republicans. Still, as gimmicks go, this one stays close enough to the facts to rate a Mostly True. We evaluated Rudy Giuliani's attack on Mitt Romney by looking at the FBI's uniform crime statistics. Romney became governor in January 2003 and left office in January 2007. Comparing the numbers between 2002 and 2006, we can calculate how crime rates changed in Massachusetts during the Romney administration. To count violent crime, the FBI includes murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery and aggravated assault. In 2002, that number was 31,137 in Massachusetts. In 2006, it was 28,775. That means violent crime declined 7.6 percent, just like Romney claims. Giuliani is wrong on this point. But let's take a closer look at murders and robberies. Murders went up from 173 in 2002 to 186 in 2006, for an increase of 7.5 percent. The murder rate β€” the number of people murdered per 100,000 people β€” moved up from 2.7 to 2.9. Robberies increased more than murders. Robberies in Massachusetts increased from 7,169 to 8,047, a jump of 12.2 percent. The robbery rate increased from 111.5 to 125. So what made the violent crime rate go down if murders and robberies went up? The biggest category decline under Romney was aggravated assault, which declined from 22,018 to 18,800, a drop of 14.6 percent. Given these numbers, Giuliani is right when he says murders and robberies went up, but wrong when he says violent crime went up. We rate his claim Half True.
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Barack Obama responded to an attack on his health care plan from Hillary Clinton by saying, "I do provide universal health care. The only difference between Senator Clinton's health care plan and mine is that she thinks the problem for people without health care is that nobody has mandated -- forced -- them to get health care." The distinction between the two plan's is that Clinton's has a mandate requiring people to get health insurance; Obama's does not. Is it fair to say a plan is universal without a mandate? There's little doubt that Obama's plan would significantly expand health care coverage. In its structure, it's not that different from Clinton's: Both leave in place employer-based private insurance; they increase access to Medicaid and SCHIP programsl they subsidize premiums for some employers; and they create pools for individuals to buy their own cheaper insurance. But universal? Obama's plan "would get close to universal coverage," said Sara Collins, a health care expert with The Commonwealth Fund. "It's clear his goal is universal coverage," she said, noting that Obama's plan includes a mandate for children. "But I think to get all people covered, he would have to mandate that adults get it, too." We think Obama is pushing the envelope calling a plan without a mandate "universal." For that reason, we rate his claim Barely True. Editor's note: This statement was rated Barely True when it was published. On July 27, 2011, we changed the name for the rating to Mostly False.
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Rudy Giuliani often boasts of turning a "$2.3-billion budget deficit into [a] $2.9-billion surplus by FY 2001" while he was mayor of New York City. He sometimes refers to the surplus as a "multibillion-dollar" one. Although his figures are correct, he doesn't include his full eight years in office. When Giuliani took office on Jan. 1, 1994, city spending was in the hole by $700-million, according to figures provided by a former Giuliani budget director, Bob Harding, at the request of the Giuliani campaign. The budget forecast for the next fiscal year, which would begin July 1, 1994, projected a gap between revenues and spending of $2.3-billion. Jump ahead seven years, to June 30, 2001, the end of Giuliani's last full fiscal year in office. The city wound up with the $2.9-billion surplus Giuliani is boasting about. So far, so good. But the last budget Giuliani wrote, for the 2001-02 fiscal year beginning the next day, had higher spending with a much smaller surplus – a $350-million surplus, to be precise, as of the day he left office. And Giuliani's budget forecast for the next fiscal year, 2003, says Harding, included a deficit of $3.1-billion that Giuliani's successor, Michael Bloomberg, would have to close. After the 9/11 attacks, that projection ballooned to $4.77-billion, according to figures from the New York City Office of Management and Budget. (The figures are not adjusted for inflation.) What Giuliani has done is include the budget that outgoing Mayor Dinkins wrote as he left office, but doesn't include the budget Giuliani himself wrote as he left office. Including both is closer to a fair comparison of the two changes of administration. It looks at (1) the moment he took office and left, and (2) the out-year projection for the first full fiscal year of the new administration as of the same date. So Giuliani inherited a deficit of about $700-million and left a surplus of $350-million as of the first and last days of his tenure. He also inherited a projected budget gap of $2.3-billion for his next fiscal year, and left his successor, Bloomberg, a projected deficit of $4.7-billion. It is probably worth noting that both out-year "deficit" figures – the one Giuliani says he inherited from Dinkins and the one he bequeathed to Bloomberg – are just projections. The city (unlike the federal government) is not allowed to end the year with an operating deficit. Harding notes that gaps in out-year budgets have often happened in New York City and have, through a combination of above-budget revenues or below-budget spending, gotten into balance or turned to surplus by the time the year ends. Add it all up and we only get halfway to true.
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As part of his education platform speech, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson lays into how tough it can be to get financial aid for college. "The forms that families have to fill out to get college aid, the (Free Application for Federal Student Aid), is 127 questions. That's longer than the form to get U.S. citizenship," he said. "Something's wrong when it's more complicated to get money for school than it is to become an American citizen. I will tear up those forms and replace them with a postcard-sized form." His idea β€” and his numbers β€” come from a Brookings Institution position paper called "College Grants on a Postcard," his campaign says. But it's not quite clear that the paper, and hence the candidate, gets it right. The FAFSA includes 102 numbered questions, some complicated, some as basic as last name and first name. Yes, those count as separate questions. You don't have to answer them all, depending on where you live. (It's a universal form, so some items apply only to Californians, and others only to Tennesseans, while others are general.) Six questions rely on worksheets that have questions. But that's backup documentation, not the form. Confused, we asked the paper's author, Harvard associate professor Susan Dynarski, how she came up with her number and what we missed. "We counted the questions," Dynarski responded in an e-mail. "There are 127." Dissatisfied, we turned to the Center for College Planning in New Hampshire, where a spokeswoman came in closer to the government's number. "There are 100 questions involved on the form," she wrote. (We don't know which ones she didn't count.) Is that longer than the form to get U.S. citizenship? Nope. By our count, Form N-400 from the Department of Homeland Security has 110 questions (first and last name count as one, not two). And though it doesn't include worksheets like FAFSA, it has its share of complicated questions. It's no easy task to document every trip of 24 hours or more outside the United States in the past five years. At a score of 110-102, we rule Richardson's statement False.
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The left-leaning advocacy group MoveOn.org has created an e-mail warning voters against Sen. John McCain, listing 10 things it says people might not know about him. "Please check out the list below, and then forward it to your friends, family, and coworkers," the e-mail says. "We can't rely on the media to tell folks about the real John McCain β€” but if we all pass this along, we can reach as many people as CNN Headline News does on a good night." Item No. 1 is about Martin Luther King Jr. "John McCain voted against establishing a national holiday in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Now he says his position has 'evolved,' yet he's continued to oppose key civil rights laws," the e-mail states. It's true that as a congressman in 1983, McCain voted against making Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday a national holiday. He was on the losing end of a 338 to 90 vote in the House of Representatives. McCain no longer stands by that vote. On April 4, 2008 β€” the 40th anniversary of Martin Luther King's death β€” McCain said the vote was wrong in a speech he gave in Memphis, the city where King died. "We can be slow as well to give greatness its due, a mistake I myself made long ago when I voted against a federal holiday in memory of Dr. King. I was wrong," he said, to loud reaction from the crowd. "I was wrong, and eventually realized it in time to give full support β€” full support β€” for a state holiday in my home state of Arizona. I'd remind you that we can all be a little late sometimes in doing the right thing, and Dr. King understood this about his fellow Americans." So McCain did oppose the national holiday, even though he later supported the state holiday. As for opposing key civil rights laws, McCain scores very low from two groups that rate Congress on issues involving civil rights law. The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights rates congressmen on their voting records. For the most recent 110th Congress, it rated senators on an array of votes on such things such as immigration, voting rights, education and the judiciary. McCain scored 22 percent on his votes, voting in favor of the conference's positions twice, on immigration issues. (Sen. Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, scored 92 percent, while Sen. Barack Obama scored 100 percent. These percentages omit missed votes.) The American Civil Liberties Union also rates McCain poorly, giving him a 17 percent rating for the 110th Congress and a 22 percent lifetime rating. Some news stories have given a more nuanced account of McCain's history on civil rights and the black community. (See Politico's April 8, 2008, story on John McCain and Arizona's black community .) But MoveOn gets its facts right on McCain, MLK Day and the senator's voting record, so we rate this statement True.
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Citing a mock election that Sen. Barack Obama won, a reporter for a student newspaper asked Sen. Hillary Clinton why her numbers aren't as strong with young voters. "Well, I think they're getting better," Clinton said at the March 25, 2008, news conference in Greensburg, Pa. "You know, I was very pleased at the reception that I've gotten here in Pennsylvania. And, you know, I did very well with young people in Ohio, Massachusetts, California." Clinton uses three big states whose primaries she won to prove her popularity with young people. Exit polls from those states show she competed well with Obama for voters under 30 years old in two of the three states: β€’ In California, she and Obama tied at 49 percent each. β€’ In Massachusetts, she won 49 percent. Obama won 48 percent. β€’ In Ohio, Clinton won 35 percent. Obama won 61 percent. Clinton did better among the youngest voters β€” those under 25 β€” in California and Massachusetts, but fared worse in Ohio: β€’ In California, Clinton won 50 percent to Obama's 48 percent. β€’ In Massachusetts, she won 57 percent while Obama took 39 percent. β€’ In Ohio, Clinton won 29 percent compared to Obama's 70 percent. Joe Lenski of Edison Media Research, the company that conducts the exit polls, said the sample sizes for the voters under 25 in the three states were only about 100 people each β€” too few to produce meaningful results. "I wouldn't say (she did well) with that number because the sample size is too low," said Lenski, who is the executive vice president. "But I'm a survey researcher, not a politician." The figures for voters under 30 are more reliable, he said, and agreed with Clinton's claim that she did well with young voters in Massachusetts and California, where she split the vote with Obama. Considering Clinton usually trails Obama by about 20 points among young voters, a tie is pretty good, Lenski said. Exit poll patterns show her performing best among older voters, he added. Lenski noted that Clinton won even more youth votes in Oklahoma and Arkansas β€” 60 percent and 56 percent under 30, respectively, he said β€” but may have passed over those examples because they're not big, core Democratic states like California and Massachusetts. It has been a bit of conventional wisdom in this campaign that Obama is winning the youth vote, which is why we evaluated Clinton's claim of doing "very well" in that context. As Lenski said, splitting the under-30 vote with Obama in Massachusetts and California is a good record for Clinton, and we find that part of her claim to be true. But by including Ohio in her claim, where Clinton took less than half of the under-30 vote that Obama won, she has gone way too far, leading us to conclude that her overall claim to doing "very well" among young voters is Half True.
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MoveOn.org has attacked Sen. John McCain in an e-mail to its membership, urging people to email it to "friends, family and co-workers." The e-mail lists 10 items about McCain, beginning with the statement, "His carefully crafted positive image relies on people not knowing this stuff β€” and you might be surprised by some of it." The fourth item on the list states, "McCain opposes a woman's right to choose. He said, 'I do not support Roe vs. Wade . It should be overturned.' " MoveOn is on solid ground here. McCain calls himself prolife. During the primaries in 2007, he asserted several times that he thought Roe vs. Wade should be overturned, and that message is featured prominently on McCain's campaign Web site. "John McCain believes Roe vs. Wade is a flawed decision that must be overturned, and as president he will nominate judges who understand that courts should not be in the business of legislating from the bench," the Web site states. "Constitutional balance would be restored by the reversal of Roe vs. Wade , returning the abortion question to the individual states." We find MoveOn's statement about McCain's position on abortion to be True.
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Perennial presidential candidate Ralph Nader is in an uphill battle for both media coverage and significant poll numbers. But somehow he's managing to get the latter without getting any of the former, he said in a recent radio interview. "The most recent Associated Press poll has Nader-Gonzalez at 6 percent, without any national coverage, against McCain and Obama," Nader said during a June 18 interview on Democracy Now!, an independent, left-leaning radio program. Nader garnered less than half that in the 2000 election and, by many accounts, damaged Al Gore enough to hand George W. Bush the White House. We checked the Associated Press polls and found none that gave Nader 6 percent. The most recent AP poll prior to the interview was an AP-Yahoo poll from April 17 that had Nader at 3 percent. Nader spokesman Chris Driscoll acknowledged the candidate had erred, and said he meant to cite a June 6 CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll , which did indeed have Nader and his running mate Matt Gonzalez at 6 percent against Democratic Sen. Barack Obama, Republican Sen. John McCain and former GOP Rep. Bob Barr, the Libertarian candidate. The finding needs context, though. Was it just an outlier? And what does it say about how Nader will do in November? Other recent polls show Nader with less support. A Rasmussen Reports poll released May 18 showed Nader pulling in 4 percent against Obama, McCain and Barr. A Reuters/Zogby poll released June 18 showed Nader with 3 percent. A Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll released June 19, the day after Nader's interview, gave him 4 percent. History suggests, however, that even these polls overstate Nader's prospects. At this time in 2000, he was showing around 4 or 5 percent in most national polls, and he ended up with 2.7 percent of the vote. Around this time in 2004, polls had Nader at anywhere from 3 to 7 percent. He got just .38 percent in the end. Now, onto Nader's assertion that his support has come "without any national coverage." Clearly he was speaking rhetorically β€” we found his name mentioned 166 times on the major broadcast and cable news programs between the first of the year and the June 18 interview. But that's six months. Obama and McCain had been mentioned on television about that much in just the previous three days. Nader's coverage had been so slight compared to that of the major-party candidates that we have a hard time holding his hyperbole against him. We are also reluctant to pick on Nader too much for getting the name of a poll wrong. So with the caveat that his claim says little about how he'll do in November, we find it Mostly True.
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Longtime consumer advocate and independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader, seeking to attract voters to the left of Sen. Barack Obama, tweaked the Democratic candidate for his unwillingness to censure President Bush. "He won't even support his colleague Sen. Russ Feingold's motion to censure the Bush administration for systemic repeated illegal wiretaps," Nader said in a June 18 interview on the radio program Democracy Now! "He β€” you know, he's letting the corporate-dominated city of Washington, the corporations who actually rule us now in Washington, determine his agenda. And that does not augur well." Feingold of Wisconsin, known as one of the most liberal Democrats in the Senate, proposed a resolution to censure Bush in March 2006, three months after the New York Times reported that the president had secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans without warrants. Censure, a congressional action that is not defined in the Constitution, has evolved as a formal expression of strong condemnation that is short of impeachment. The Senate has censured only one U.S. president β€” Andrew Jackson, in 1834, for firing the secretary of the treasury in a dispute over deposits in a national bank. Jackson's party, the Democrats, later expunged the censure. Feingold's proposal was to "condemn [Bush's] unlawful authorization of wiretaps of Americans within the United States without obtaining the court orders required by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978." Republicans immediately attacked the measure, and many Democrats distanced themselves from it, including the senator and future presidential candidate from Illinois. "It's not impeachment, but it's not something you apply lightly," Obama told the Chicago Tribune at the time. "And whether we want to start applying censure motions or impeachment when there are questions about a president's authority in national security is something that you have to be judicious about." Only three senators β€” Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, and John Kerry, D-Mass. β€” have co-sponsored Feingold's resolution. It has not moved out of the Senate Judiciary Committee. The Obama campaign did not respond to requests to clarify his position on this censure proposal. His past comments and his decision not to co-sponsor Feingold's resolution lead us to conclude Nader was correct in saying Obama does not support it. We find Nader's claim to be True.
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A new Web video from Sen. John McCain's campaign invokes James Bond to portray Sen. Barack Obama as an opponent of McCain's energy initiatives. With music that sounds like the 007 theme, the ad opens with Obama in silhoutte and the words "Barack Obama Is Dr. No." The words change to "No To Drilling Offshore Oil" while Obama is heard saying, "Offshore drilling would not lower gas prices today." The screen says, "No To A Gas Tax Holiday" while Obama says, "I think John McCain's proposal for a three-month tax holiday is a bad idea." "No To Innovation. No To The Electric Car" appears on the screen while Obama says "In this campaign, John McCain is offering the same old gimmicks." "No To Clean, Safe, Nuclear Energy" while Obama says "I start off with the premise that nuclear energy is not optimal. I am not a nuclear energy proponent." The ad ends with the message: "Barack Obama Truly Is The Dr. No Of Energy Security." The ad is part of an effort by the McCain campaign to portray Obama as an obstructionist on energy policy. We were surprised to find the ad had a split personality. The drilling and gas tax claims were accurate, as we'll explain below. But we found McCain was Pants-on-Fire wrong with his claims about Obama's positions on innovation, the car and nuclear power. The drilling claim refers to Obama's response after McCain suggested on June 16, 2008, that states be given authority to decide whether to permit offshore drilling. Indeed, that day Obama's campaign said he was opposed, and on June 20 the candidate reiterated his opposition during a stop in Jacksonville, Fla. "I will keep the moratorium in place and prevent oil companies from drilling off Florida's coasts," Obama said in his prepared remarks for that appearance. He also said McCain was misleading voters by suggesting more drilling would lower gas prices, because it would take many years before a significant amount of oil was produced. The ad's claim about the gas tax holiday refers to Obama's response to another McCain proposal, to eliminate the federal tax on gasoline between Memorial Day and Labor Day. Obama has repeatedly said he opposes the idea because oil companies would not pass along the savings and, even if they did, it would provide relatively little help to consumers. (We checked Obama's claim that it would save a typical motorist about 30 cents a day and found it Mostly True. ) So on these points, McCain's right. Obama is opposed to changing the rules on offshore drilling and suspending the gas tax. McCain gets a True.
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Romney is right that McCain switched on the tax cuts. When the cuts were first proposed in 2001, McCain joined Democrats in voting against them. At the time, he said the tax breaks didn't do enough for the middle class, and because of a need for increased defense spending. In 2003, the phased-in cuts of 2001 were accelerated but McCain again voted no, saying taxes shouldn't be cut in time of war. But in 2006, when the cuts were extended, McCain voted yes because he said opposing the extension of cuts already in place would amount to a tax increase. Updated: This post has been updated to correct the reasons McCain gave at the time for opposing tax cuts in 2001. Our initial posting attributed his reasons to statements he made later about fiscal restraint.
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On Aug. 20, 2007, in a bid to convince New Hampshire Democrats that he stands the best chance of beating the Republican nominee next year, Obama said he could be the only candidate to "actually redraw the political map" β€” especially in the South. "If we just got African-Americans in Mississippi to vote their percentage of the population," he said, "Mississippi is suddenly a Democratic state." He said the same would happen in Georgia, and that South Carolina would be in play as well. His claims about those states don't stand up very well to the math. To begin with, African-Americans in Mississippi and Georgia already come close to voting their percentage of the population. The suggested gains, while they may be welcome, would not be large enough to turn the tide in these red states. In the 2004 presidential election, blacks made up 34 percent of the voters who turned out in Mississippi, where they comprise 37 percent of the population. The numbers are similar in Georgia. In South Carolina, blacks actually made up a slightly larger portion of Election Day voters than they did of the population. Still, the Democratic candidate, John Kerry, went down to defeat in those states. Enter Obama, who says his African-American heritage changes the game in 2008. What if blacks did vote their percentage of the population in the states he mentions? Say he gets every black Mississippi vote that Kerry got in 2004. (about 352,500). Then say he gets the Mississippi white voters who supported Kerry (105,200). Then give him all of the 72,600 black voters who would turn out if Mississippi blacks voted their percentage of the population in 2008. That's about 530,300 total votes for Obama β€” still short of the 685,000 Mississippi votes that went to George W. Bush in 2004. In sum, he falls short by more than 150,000 votes in Mississippi, about 300,000 votes in Georgia and more than 200,000 votes in South Carolina - even using the most favorable estimates. We did the same analysis on the rest of the Southern states. The math works out the same everywhere but in Florida, where the margin between the parties is so close that an extra 400,000 black voters β€” all supporting Obama β€” might buy him a very narrow victory. Brownback is right when he says 36 percent of children in the United States are born out of wedlock. The latest data available is from 2005, according to a report from the Centers for Disease Control's National Center for Health Statistics. "The proportion of births to unmarried women increased in 2005 to 36.8 percent, compared with 35.8 percent in 2004," the report stated. "The proportions increased for all population subgroups by race and Hispanic origin."
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No, he didn't really build the fence himself, but we don't think anybody thinks that's what he meant. And he was instrumental in securing the funding to have the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers get the work done. It also is true that building the first strong fence along the U.S.-Mexico border south of San Diego in the early 1990s, and strengthening it at the end of the decade, did coincide with a sharp drop in apprehension of illegal immigrants in the westernmost area of the U.S.-Mexico border. But analysts dispute to what extent these changes can be attributed to the border fence. Hunter is correct that smuggling along the San Diego-Tijuana corridor dramatically decreased when the fence started to go up. Border Patrol apprehensions at the Imperial Beach station, the most secure point along the fence, dropped from 321,560 in 1993 to 19,035 in 2004, a decrease of 94 percent over the 12-year period. But apprehensions along the entire San Diego County section of the border, which does not have a continuous secure fence, dropped sharply, too -- 79 percent between 1996 and 2002. Meanwhile, apprehensions in the neighboring fenceless El Centro County shot up during the same period. The Congressional Research Service, a nonpartisan arm of the federal government, notes that opponents of the fence say there is no way of measuring how many smugglers go through the area without being apprehended. CRS says those same critics also point to other factors, such as a doubling of the number of border patrol agents in the same period that might have deterred illegal crossings. Hunter is also mostly correct about his pivotal role in the construction of both the first fence along the 14-mile stretch between San Diego and Tijuana (begun in 1990) and the subsequent strengthening of the fence. He snagged the funding for the first fence in the early 1990s, then wrote the law authorizing funding for two additional layers in 1996. Sen. John McCain, the Arizona Republican, overstates the problem of removing federal employees for poor performance, but not by much, according experts who examine federal work rules. It is perhaps not a surprise that a union offical disputes McCain's use of the incompetent federal worker cliche. Procedures do exist to remove workers from their jobs, and many people do get fired. But it takes a long time, according to the outside experts who follow such issues closely. McCain wisely faults not an individual but a "system." That puts him on pretty solid ground, where even a study by the federal government had difficulty finding supervisors who had attempted to take action against poorly performing employees.
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Here's the full quote, from Giuliani's May 31, 2007 speech to the Manhattan Institute: "But even as you look back on it, the crime decline in the United States would be fairly small if it wasn't for the crime decline in New York City." This is a case of taking good statistics and using them to reach a false conclusion. Giuliani rightfully boasts about significant drops in crime rates during his tenure as mayor. The raw percentages are eye-popping, but they also mirror a trend that could be seen nationally and in cities around the country. In this statement, Giuliani simply tries to say too much. His assertion that the national decline in crime "would be fairly small" if not for the improvements in New York just isn't true. From 1993-2001 -- the time frame the Giuliani campaign uses for its crime stats -- the number of violent crimes nationwide fell by about 25 percent. If you factor out the crimes that occurred in New York during that same period, the nationwide drop would still have been 23 percent. The difference in the decline for property crimes would have been even smaller.
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His full statement: "In state after state, polls make clear that the American public understands the Kelo ruling is a disaster: 82 percent of Ohioans oppose using eminent domain to take property for economic development, 91 percent of Minnesotans, 92 percent of Kansans, 95 percent of Coloradans, and 86 percent of Missourians. The American public has spoken with one voice, and they're saying that this is not right." McCain is correct that the ruling in Kelo vs. New London, Conn. , a 2005 Supreme Court decision allowing local governments to take land from property owners for the purpose of economic development, is unpopular in the United States. But some of the numbers he uses to illustrate his point are unreliable and inflated. McCain's numbers are gleaned from a list put together by the Castle Coalition, an activist group launched to fight eminent domain seizures in the wake of the Kelo decision. Of the numbers he cites, only the Ohio figure comes from a scientific and disinterested poll. The rest of the numbers are from surveys commissioned by interest groups, or from unscientific polls conducted by local news organizations on their Web sites. McCain did not ignore more reliable polls, he just didn't have them. There has been little, if any, national polling on eminent domain since the Kelo decision. A Gallup poll conducted immediately after the Kelo decision found that the ruling contributed to a plunge in Americans' approval of the Supreme Court. And in 2006, 12 states considered ballot initiatives on legislation limiting eminent domain power. Ten of those measures became law, most with more than 60 percent of the vote: Louisiana (55%), Nevada (63%), Arizona (65%), Oregon (67%), North Dakota (68%), Florida (69%), Michigan (80%), Georgia (83%), New Hampshire (86%) and South Carolina (86%). UPDATE: Previously we reported that no ballot initiative passed by more than 68 percent of the vote. We were wrong. Five of them did. See the numbers above.
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Richardson's ad says that, as governor of New Mexico in 2005, he "passed the first law in the nation giving National Guard soldiers $400,000 in life insurance." He sets up the claim, saying: "When a National Guard soldier would fall in combat, the family was only getting $12,000 β€” a national disgrace." He says 18 states followed his lead. We find the claims to be mostly true, though the nitpicker in us needs to point out that no governor can "pass" a law without a big assist from the legislative branch. Also, the ad overstates a couple of points. Let's focus on the set-up claim first. At the time in question β€” early 2005 β€” the families of fallen service personnel received a $12,420 "death gratuity" or benefit. What the ad does not say is that they probably also received the benefit of a low-cost, government-subsidized life insurance policy covering the soldiers for up to $250,000. About 95 percent of ready reserves purchase this insurance. In fact, it's automatically deducted from their pay unless they opt out. This overstatement aside, Richardson did initiate and push through legislation to pay the premiums on those policies for members of the New Mexico National Guard. The legislation does amount to "giving" soldiers life insurance, as the ad states. After Congress upped the maximum payout to $400,000, New Mexico agreed to cover the additional premiums for that coverage. The $12,420 death benefit, which many others described as disgraceful, was increased to $100,000 by Congress at the same time. Later in 2005 and 2006, the 18 states mentioned in the ad did pass some form of legislation improving benefits for military personnel. Were they all following Richardson's lead as the ad suggests? Richardson said in a February 2005 news release that 21 states had contacted his office about the insurance program. "Many are preparing legislation based on the New Mexico model," he said. Still, he is far from being a lone voice on the issue. Only a few months earlier, Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., was proposing a generous bump in military death benefits during his 2004 presidential run. By mid January 2005, President Bush and many members of Congress from both parties were clamoring to increase death benefits for the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. We note that Richardson first proposed paying for the premiums to his state's National Guard troops on Jan. 4, 2005. So he does appear to have been on the leading edge of the effort.
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Right before delivering a speech on Iraq policy at George Washington University on March 17, 2008, Hillary Clinton reflected on her days traveling as first lady. It was then that she said she remembered landing under sniper fire in Bosnia, a claim that's been widely debunked. (Including by us: We called it a Pants on Fire fib.) She also said, "There was a saying around the White House that if a place was too small, too poor or too dangerous, the president couldn't go, so send the first lady, and that's where we went." We analyzed Clinton's international travel based on recently released White House schedules, interviews with traveling companions and scholars, as well as news reports from those trips. We found that Clinton went to many places that were large, wealthy and safe. We documented travel to 82 countries, and the top 10 list looks like an itinerary any travel agent could sell. Our analysis showed that when Hillary Clinton traveled without her husband during the eight years she was first lady, she spent the most days in these countries: Morocco 7 Austria 6 India 6 Italy 6 Switzerland 6 Turkey 6 Czech Republic 5 Egypt 5 Israel 5 Poland 5 They may not be the top NATO allies, but we can't consider any of these countries to meet the trifecta of small, poor and dangerous. Yes, she did go to places like Iceland (pretty small), Eritrea (poor) and Bosnia (arguably dangerous at the time she visited). But her travel itinerary is hardly a tour of the world's most obscure countries. Rather, her travels tended to emphasize stable allies of the United States, many of which are quite populous. To view our interactive map of Clinton's foreign trips as first lady, click here. When she traveled with President Clinton, her schedule may have been a little more glamorous, with more time spent in France, England and Russia. But her solo itinerary was no tour of tiny, dangerous places. So we find her statement to be Barely True. Editor's note: This statement was rated Barely True when it was published. On July 27, 2011, we changed the name for the rating to Mostly False.
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Speaking to union workers in Philadelphia, Sen. Hillary Clinton began "a blistering attack on the presumptive Republican nominee" concerning economic issues, according to the New York Times. "His plan for the economy is to extend George Bush's tax cuts for billionaires and give a $100-billion additional corporate tax cut," Clinton said. Blistering or not, Clinton's attack fairly recites some of McCain's economic proposals. It's worth noting, however that extending existing tax cuts and lowering the corporate income tax rate is not the entirety of McCain's plan for the economy. Among other things, McCain also proposes eliminating the alternative minimum tax, which was designed to make sure wealthy people paid a share of taxes but has become a problem in recent years for upper middle class families, too. Still, McCain's support for extending President Bush's tax cuts is well known. We checked it out not one , two , three , four , but five times because former candidate Mitt Romney and various political groups have harped on the fact that McCain originally opposed the Bush tax cuts before supporting them. McCain's camp could argue with the word "billionaires" because the Congressional Budget Office found the Bush tax cuts most benefited the top 1 percent of earners who had an average salary of $1.25-million. It goes without saying that billionaires are in the top 1 percent, too, but clearly most people in that tax bracket wouldn't fit that definition. But it's also clear they aren't hurting, financially, either. Clinton doesn't embellish at all when it comes to describing McCain's additional $100-billion corporate tax cut. She clearly is referring to his proposal to slice the corporate income tax rate from 35 percent to 25 percent, as McCain has outlined on his campaign Web site. McCain's chief economic aide, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former head of the Congressional Budget Office, told the Wall Street Journal it would cost $100-billion a year. McCain's campaign estimates the entirety of its tax cuts would total $400-billion a year. Clinton didn't mention that part, which causes us concern. Her statement suggests that McCain has only two ideas for helping the economy, and that's not true. Yes, she accurately describes those two elements of McCain's economic proposal, but she's wrong to suggest that's all McCain has in mind. For that, we give her a Half True.
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At the Democratic debate in Philadelphia, Barack Obama made a case that working families need more help because they're facing harder economic times. "We're seeing greater income inequality now than any time since the 1920s," Obama said. Obama is making a broad point here, but several sources support him. The U.S. Census compiles data on income distribution on a year-to-year basis. Since 1967, it's clear that the top 5 percent of all households are capturing a growing share of the nation's aggregate income. From 1917 to 1998, the income share of the top 10 percent dropped and then began rising again, following a U-shaped curve, according to a historical analysis of U.S. tax returns by economists Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez published in 2003 in the Quarterly Journal of Economics . Piketty and Saez found that economic inequality grew further by 2005. That year, the top 1 percent of Americans β€” people with incomes of more than $348,000 β€” received their largest share of national income since 1928. Critics may argue whether this change in income distribution is significant or not, or what it's underlying causes are. Earlier in this campaign, Hillary Clinton argued that George W. Bush was to blame, a statement we found only Half-True . But the numbers show that income inequality is at a record high since the 1920s, so we find Obama's statement to be True.
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Illinois Sen. Barack Obama recently confronted the issue of equal rights for gays and lesbians with some history about his life. "I'm the product of a mixed marriage that would have been illegal in 12 states when I was born," he told TheAdvocate.com. Obama made the remark during a wide-ranging interview about issues affecting the gay, bisexual and transgender community with a Web site for gay and lesbian readers. Obama said his perspective about rights for same-sex couples is shaped by the broader political and historical context of his upbringing. Such laws were more widepsread than Obama realizes. At the time of his birth Aug. 4, 1961, 22 states banned interracial marriages, not 12. (For those counting: Arizona, Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia and Wyoming.) But it was never an issue for his white American mother and black Kenyan father, who lived in Hawaii. The island state is one of only nine that never declared these marriages illegal. At one time or another, laws against miscegenation were active in close to 40 states. In 1967, when the U.S. Supreme Court declared the bans unconstitutional in the landmark Loving vs. Virginia ruling, 16 states were still enforcing them, said Peter Wallenstein, a Virginia Tech history professor and pre-eminent scholar on the subject. Wallenstein said that although his number is off, Obama's point is still striking a chord with younger supporters who "can't imagine there was ever a time" when mixed marriages were illegal. We can't give Obama a straight-up true because his number is way off, but his larger point, that many states prohibited interracial marriage in the early 1960s, is correct.
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McCain is correct that Clinton took heat from anti-war protestors for her Aug. 20 comments on the surge and how it was working, and she did issue a statement two days later attempting to clarify her position. But McCain cherry-picks from her comments and incorrectly suggests she flip-flopped on how well the surge has worked and that she was prompted to support a troop withdrawal because of the recent criticsm. In fact, she made that point in the original speech, as well as in Wednesday's statement. On Monday, Clinton made headlines when she told the annual meeting of the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Kansas City that, "We've begun to change tactics in Iraq, and in some areas, particularly in al Anbar province, it's working." But she also told the VFW she didn't believe the conflict in Iraq could be solved militarily, or that U.S. troops should be policing a civil war. "The best way of honoring their service is by beginning to bring them home," she said. McCain's statement does not mention that part of her speech. On Aug. 22, Clinton's Senate office issued a statement saying she hasn't changed her position: "The surge was designed to give the Iraqi government time to take steps to ensure a political solution to the situation. It has failed to do so…. It is abundantly clear that there is no military solution to the sectarian fighting in Iraq. We need to stop refereeing the war, and start getting out now." Indeed, Clinton introduced legislation in February in the Senate, S. 670, to withdraw troops from Iraq. Editor's note: This statement was rated Barely True when it was published. On July 27, 2011, we changed the name for the rating to Mostly False. In a debate at the historically black college, Gravel said, "one of the areas that touches me the most and enrages me the most is our war on drugs that this country has been putting forth for the last generation." Then he put forth statistics. 2.3 million people in jail. 70 percent of them African-American. Yikes. He got the first one right, but that 70 percent figure? That's not just wrong, that's Pants-On-Fire wrong. The real figure, according to the June 2007 report of the Bureau of Justice Statistics that counts federal, state and local jails, is 40 percent. We're giving Gravel our harshest ruling because he botched this fact so badly and because it's such an important one to get right. It's something of a popular myth that most of the people in jail or prison are black, so to hear a presidential candidate make the false claim with such authority should not be overlooked. It also is worth noting that the 2.3 million figure that Gravel got right comes from the very same Bureau of Justice report that shows how wrong he was about the incarceration of black people. He should have kept reading.
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Fred Thompson suggests that gun ownership reduces crime, but his commentary is backed by little more than disputed NRA statistics. In a posting on his Web site on Aug. 21, Thompson provided his take on the controversy with a commentary about New York City and its efforts to sue gun makers. "Ironically, all of this comes at a time of historically low violent crime rates and historically high gun ownership rates nationally," Thompson wrote. He went on to cite National Rifle Association figures. His statistics fall short in several ways. First, gun ownership rates are extremely difficult to calculate. The NRA used 8-year-old federal estimates and then used gun purchase figures to assume there are additional guns in the United States. However, a spokeswoman for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms said it is impossible to estimate how gun ownership has grown because there is no national gun registry. Violent crime had been at historic lows, dropping between 1993 and 2004. However, the FBI reports that the estimated rate of violent crime increased 2.3 percent in 2005 and 1.3 percent in 2006. Advocates on both sides of the issue have used the statistics to argue their own cases. The neutral Congressional Research Service declared in May 2005 that there's not enough evidence on either side: "According to a recent study...none of the existing sources of statistics provide either comprehensive, timely or accurate data with which to definitively assess whether there is a causal connection between firearms and violence."
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On the topic of the conflict in Iraq, Dennis Kucinich holds the high ground among his Democratic rivals who oppose the war with his 2002 vote against authorizing military action against Saddam Hussein. Of the Democrats running for president who were in Congress at the time, Kucinich is the only one who voted against the war resolution. But to earn the crown as the "first" -- whatever that means, and Kucinich's campaign wouldn't clarify -- is a more nuanced privilege. Was he the first person? No. Was he the first Congressman? No. Was he the first presidential candidate? No (Correct answer: Republican Ron Paul). Was he the first Democratic presidential candidate? Yes. According to the Congressional Record, the Cleveland Democrat first spoke against the war in the context of Iraq in remarks made March 20, 2002. Kucinich advocated peace and warned against the slippery slope of nuclear weapons. (Paul spoke out on Nov. 29, 2001 saying "the argument that (Saddam) Hussein is producing weapons of mass destruction is the reddest of all herrings," according to the Congressional Record.) But Kucinich earned the title as the leader of the anti-war movement in late August 2002 after holding a widely reported Capitol Hill briefing where he called for more "discussion about why we should not go to war," according to an article in the Cleveland Plain Dealer. He then began building a congressional coalition against the war. "Unilateral military action by the United States against Iraq is unjustified, unwarranted and illegal," said Kucinich, according to The Washington Times on Sept. 20, 2002. "The administration has failed to make the case that Iraq poses an imminent or immediate threat to the United States." Kucinich solidified his position as the opposition headmaster Oct. 3, 2002, when he took the floor of the House to present an eight-page, point-by-point analysis refuting the joint resolution on Iraq in the days before the vote. U.S. commanders say it would be a lengthy process, and independent military analysts have said it would take about a year to pull U.S. troops out of Iraq safely. It could be done faster, but with larger U.S. casualties and more abandoned equipment, experts say. McClatchy Newspapers has reported that a simulation conducted by the Pentagon since the debate suggested a retreat could take as little as six months, but critics said that estimate is overly optimistic. "We must consider the complexity of the threat and deliberately reduce our forces based on the situation on the ground as well as the capability of the Iraqi security forces," Army Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno, the deputy commander of forces in Iraq, said at a briefing this month. "I think the plan will reflect that as we develop it."
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During a campaign stop in Iowa on July 4, the six-term senator declared, "This guy is brain-dead." It's an extreme charge, since brain death is defined as "irreversible unconciousness with complete loss of brain function" (Encyclopedia of Death and Dying). Needless to say, we find the charge ridiculous. There's no evidence Biden performed the necessary medical tests to make such a diagnosis. We would have accepted the results of a cerebral blood flow study or proof that Biden had examined Bush to see if he had an oculocephalic reflex. Indeed, even people who disagree with the president about Iraq and assorted other issues will acknowledge that the president has spontaneous respiration and is responding to stimuli. There's more than one source on these bank account figures and all of them are estimates. But no matter the details, the point Edwards seeks to make is the same: Because they lack bank accounts, millions of poor must rely on expensive check-cashing services and payday loans. The Edwards campaign Website uses the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank for its figure of about 56 million people without accounts. The center got the number from a 2002 report by the General Accounting Office, which used U.S. Census data to estimate that 55.9-million adults did not hold checking, savings or money market accounts in 1999. But that number is at the high end of the available estimates. According to the Federal Reserve Board's 2004 Survey of Consumer Finances, its most recent, the number of American families without a bank account is closer to 10-million. The Census estimates 2.6 individuals per houshold, which would put the Federal Reserve estimate on bank accounts at 26-million at the very most because the Census household figure includes children. Gov. Mitt Romney has a television ad in New Hampshire that attacks Sen. John McCain for his positions on taxes and illegal immigrants. Specifically, he charges that McCain "opposes repeal of the death tax," officially called the estate tax, a tax on the property passed forward and received at death. Just looking at the votes, Romney is right. The issue has come before the U.S. Senate at least three times, and each time McCain voted against permanently repealing the estate tax. But in a closer look at McCain's record, we find he supports a plan that would render the tax moot for most people. McCain says he wants a tax exemption on estates worth up to $10-million and a 15 percent tax on inheritances worth more than that. Under that plan, about 95 percent of the estate tax returns filed in 2006 would be exempt, according to Internal Revenue Service statistics. Which means the tax would survive for only the wealthiest few. Still, given McCain's votes against repealing the tax, we rule Romney's claim Mostly True.
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Mitt Romney had his flip-flop feet held to the fire by Meet the Press host Tim Russert on Dec. 16, 2007, and made this statement claiming he was endorsed by the National Rifle Association during his 2002 campaign for Massachusetts governor. But he wasn't. The Washington Post picked up on the error that day and posted on its blog "The Trail." The story included a backpedaling quote from the Romney campaign. "The NRA did not endorse in the 2002 campaign," spokesman Kevin Madden said in the Post blog. A couple of days later, Romney campaign spokesman Kristy Campbell elaborated to PolitiFact: "They did not officially endorse, but there had been folks doing supportive phone banking for him." We called the NRA several days in a row seeking comment and confirmation of Campbell's statement about phone banking. Despite promising to call PolitiFact back, no one did. And we could find no independent verification. We did find something funny: Turns out the NRA endorsed a Romney for public office, just not Mitt. Ronna Romney, divorced from Gov. Romney's brother Scott, earned the NRA's support in 1996 as she campaigned for a U.S. Senate seat representing Michigan. She won the primary, but lost to incumbent Sen. Carl Levin. Maybe that's why Mitt was confused. At least he admits it's False.
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In response to a TV ad by Mitt Romney that highlights Mike Huckabee's 1,000-plus pardons, Huckabee tried to turn the tables and said Romney's refusal to grant pardons denied people who committed small crimes a chance to clear their records. Huckabee cited one case involving "a decorated soldier" who wanted to become a police officer but still had a criminal record from a minor incident when he was 13 years old and shot another boy with a BB gun. "Didn't even break the skin," Huckabee said on NBC's Today Show on Dec. 19. Huckabee is accurately describing the case of a soldier named Anthony Circosta of Agawam, Mass., a member of the Army National Guard who fought in Iraq and was awarded a Bronze Star. He then sought a pardon so he could become a police officer, but was turned down. Circosta did not return a phone call from PolitiFact this week, but Huckabee's description of the case is supported by accounts in the Associated Press and other publications. "Now, I would have given that kid a pardon," Huckabee said about Circosta in a Fox News Channel interview on Dec. 20. "And everywhere I've gone and asked people for a show of hands, everybody agrees with me." Romney refused all pardon requests in his four years as governor. "I didn't pardon anybody as governor because I didn't want to overturn a jury," he said during a June 2007 debate. When he was asked about his policy in December 2007, Romney replied "We looked at the cases one by one and I did not want to provide commutations to people who had weapons violations that were going to be asking to use weapons in their new capacity." He told reporters that the only reasons he would have issued a pardon or commutation would have been if he found evidence that proved a wrongful conviction, prosecutorial misconduct or errors in the judicial process.
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A TV ad by Mitt Romney features former business partner Robert Gay crediting Romney with helping reunite Gay with his daughter after she went missing. On July 6, 1996 the girl sneaked off during the weekend to go to a rave party in New York City, where she took the drug Ecstasy, according to news reports at the time. She had told her parents she was playing tennis. When she didn't return, Boston-based Bain Capital, where Romney was founder and CEO, essentially shut down to help search for Gay's 14-year-old daughter Melissa. Bain Capital's 50 employees went to New York, where they convinced more than 200 other people to help search the streets for two days. They printed and passed out fliers. Romney clearly had a leading role in the company's operations, but news reports from the time also said other Bain partners helped coordinate the search effort. According to news reports, the teen was found in suburban New Jersey. A teenaged boy, who took her in after her partying, called authorities late on July 11. Lt. David Peterson of the Montville Township Police said police reports at the time do not mention Romney, but Peterson and reports at the time show the Bain Capital search generated important attention to the case of the missing girl. "The thing was it was a 911 caller that saw her on channel 7 and called in," said Peterson, who recalled waiting for the girl to be picked up from Montville police station. Gay says Romney helped "save" his daughter, though previous reports have differed on the condition she was in. "Doctors told Gay she might not have lived another day," according to the Boston Globe in 2002. Newsday reported in July 1996 that "Melissa's parents said she was physically unharmed though she appeared 'very fragile.' The family's doctor had examined the girl and pronounced her in fairly good condition. ..." "She was not harmed," Robert Gay said at new conference after she was found, according to the New York Daily News . "She was in tears. We just gave her hugs and brought her back home." The ad says Romney "helped save" the girl, and we certainly aren't going to argue over the physical condition of the girl when she was found. Her Dad says she was "saved," and under the circumstances we won't disagree. The ad also says Romney "helped." Hard to argue with that either. True.
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Standing on a stage in Iowa, amid all his competitors for the Republican presidential primary, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee made a bold claim. Of all the candidates, he said, he owned "the most impressive" education record. "We raised standards, we measured and we held people accountable for the results," he said. It might seem an easy thing to prove. He had 10 years of executive leadership under his belt, compared to Mitt Romney's four and Rudy Giuliani's eight. The others, of course, had none, leaving this a contest where only three could compete. Huckabee also had a pretty hefty resume behind him, including past chairmanships of the Education Commission of the States and the Southern Regional Education Board. And under his watch, he pushed for or signed legislation that improved Arkansas teacher pay, curriculum standards and education funding. The results were quite remarkable. As the Education Trust reports, Arkansas was the biggest gainer in fourth-grade math and second best in eighth-grade math over seven years of the national exam known as the "nation's report card." By the time of the debate, in fact, Huckabee had become the only Republican to be endorsed by the New Hampshire chapter of the National Education Association. But as is the case with all claims of being the best or worst of something, Huckabee's takes just a small amount of poking to find points that deflate the logic. First, consider Romney's record. Though in office a shorter time than Huckabee, Romney certainly can claim as strong, if not stronger, results. Massachusetts fourth- and eighth-graders rated first in the nation in both math and science on the "nation's report card" in both 2005 and 2007. Education Week rated Massachusetts as fifth on its 2007 "chance for success" index, compared to Arkansas' 39th. Second, consider Huckabee's critics, who say the former governor claims too much credit. Tom Kimbrell, a former superintendent who now heads the Arkansas Association of Educational Administrators, minces no words in assessing Huckabee's tenure: "He was the governor of Arkansas, but as far as being part of the process, he was not present. There was no leadership at all." Kimbrell, who was knee-deep in many of the state's education issues during Huckabee's tenure, said the Legislature and the state's education organizations made things happen on most key issues. And when Huckabee did press his views, such as on arts education and consolidation of small school districts, Kimbrell contended the results were not positive. Consolidation did not save money as promised, though it did disrupt many small rural communities. And a mandate for arts education came without funding and ended up as part of a lawsuit. Gary Ritter, an associate professor of education and public policy at the University of Arkansas, put it this way: "He took unpopular stands in favor of strategies he believed would work. I'm not sure if they worked." Did Huckabee act on education issues? Yes. Was his record the "most impressive" of the bunch? Romney certainly competes. So we rate Huckabee's boast Half True.
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The left-leaning organization MoveOn.org targeted Sen. John McCain in an e-mail to supporters, listing "10 things you should know about John McCain (but probably don't)." The list attacks McCain on a host of issues that include his policies, personal wealth and personality. The final item attacks McCain for his record on the environment. "He positions himself as proenvironment, but he scored a zero β€” yes, zero β€” from the League of Conservation Voters last year," the e-mail states. McCain says he supports the environment. His campaign Web site brags: "Along with his commitment to clean air and water, and to conserving open space, he has been a leader on the issue of global warming with the courage to call the nation to action on an issue we can no longer afford to ignore." It's also true that the League of Conservation Voters gave McCain a score of zero on its 2007 Congressional scorecard, placing him among eight senators who got doughnuts. But there is a mitigating reason McCain got a zero. Of the 15 votes the league graded, McCain was absent for every vote β€” yes, every vote. The other bottom-ranking senators actively voted against the league's agenda. Five voted against the league's preferred position on all 15 votes, and two voted against the league's position on 14 votes. To find out if McCain really is the bottom of the barrel on the environment, we called David Jenkins of Republicans for Environmental Protection, who served on the league's scorecard advisory committee. Jenkins said McCain's record on the environment is significantly better than the league's scorecard shows, and his organization endorsed McCain for president in October 2007, during the Republican primary. "If someone wanted to make the case that, as a senator, you should be there for votes, well, you could make that case," Jenkins said. "But to say that it says something about his environmental positions is disingenuous." (We looked at another, similar controversy over using missed votes to rate McCain's environmental record; read that story here .) The Republicans for Environmental Protection does its own scorecard, but McCain didn't do so great on that one, getting only 36 points on a 100 point scale. (The group's rankings are a little more complicated because they also award bonus points for "leadership positions"; it's even possible to receive a score higher than 100.) Despite McCain's low ratings, Jenkins considers him one of the three most reliable Republican senators on environmental issues. (The other two Jenkins named are Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, both of Maine.) MoveOn's words about McCain's environmental record are literally true β€” because he's missed so many votes. As we noted in our previous item, his average score with the group between 2001 and 2006 was 44.3, but the e-mail gives the impression that McCain is rock-bottom on environmental issues. We rate this charge by Moveon.org to be Half True.
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The left-leaning advocacy group MoveOn.org has targeted Sen. John McCain in an e-mail list of "10 things you should know about John McCain (but probably don't)." The e-mail goes after him on issues from domestic policy to foreign policy to personal attributes. It urges recipients to forward the email to "your friends, family and co-workers." Item five addresses children's issues. "The Children's Defense Fund rated McCain as the worst senator in Congress for children. He voted against the children's health care bill last year, then defended Bush's veto of the bill." It's true that McCain had the worst score β€” 10 percent β€” in the Senate from the Children's Defense Fund for 2007. But it's important to note that McCain's score was so low because he missed eight of 10 votes that the fund evaluates. On the two issues remaining, McCain voted for one (raising the minimum wage) and against one (expanding the State Children's Health Insurance Program, called SCHIP). For the record, Sen. Barack Obama scored 60 percent, missing four of the critical 10 votes and siding with the group on the six votes he cast. Sen. Hillary Clinton scored 70 percent, missing three votes and agreeing with the group on the seven votes she cast. MoveOn is correct that McCain voted against the children's health bill and defended President Bush's veto of the program. McCain, though, said he voted against the bill because it didn't contain adequate provisions for paying for the expansion. "The American people have rebelled against out-of-control spending. If they can find a legitimate way to pay for it, I would consider it," he said. So McCain may have scored better on the Children's Defense Fund scorecard if he had been there for more of the votes. (Though McCain's history with the group isn't that great, either. In 2006, his score was 10 percent and in 2005 it was 22 percent.) But MoveOn omits the caveat that his vote against SCHIP was based on spending concerns. But these are minor points, and not enough to notch down the Truth-O-Meter too much. We find MoveOn's statement about McCain's rating and his stance on the children's health bill to be True.
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In a March 16, 2008, interview with a group of college journalists, the mtvU editorial board, former President Bill Clinton was asked why Sen. Hillary Clinton had not made a pledge not to accept campaign contributions from lobbyists, as Sen. Barack Obama has. "He (Obama) did accept donations from lobbyists and PACs and he spent money in this campaign from that, through his political action committee," Bill Clinton said. "He said one thing and did another." Clinton is talking here about Obama's leadership PAC, Hopefund. Leadership PACs are political action committees established by members of Congress to support other candidates. All the other presidential candidates shut down their leadership PACs when they announced their candidacy, but Obama's PAC continued to distribute more than $400,000 to political candidates and parties after Obama entered the ring on Feb. 10, 2007. "And this money did come from lobbyists and special interest groups," Clinton said. Clinton is right, but some scale is in order. According to an analysis for PolitiFact by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, of the $4.5-million raised by Obama's Hopefund, $16,500 came from lobbyists, and $125,000 from political action committees such as Lockheed Martin Employees' PAC, AT&T; Corp. PAC and Walt Disney Productions Employees. The biggest donors were lawyers and law firms, accounting for nearly a half-million dollars. So Obama's leadership PAC did raise money from lobbyists and PACs, though it amounted to just a fraction of the total fundraising. Also notable is that the money was collected before Obama announced his presidential candidacy, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. PolitiFact has already weighed in on Obama's campaign pledge not to take money from lobbyists or PACs, finding that while he has eschewed money from federally registered lobbyists, he has accepted thousands from people who work for lobbying firms. We have also noted that Hillary Clinton has raised more campaign donations from registered lobbyists than any other candidate. Common sense suggests the distributions to candidates were meant to advance Obama's campaign, particularly when almost 43 percent of the money was spent on candidates in states with early primaries. (See our related ruling on this point here). One question is whether Obama's Hopefund distributions violate Obama's pledge not to accept lobbyist or PAC money in his run for president. Because the contributions were made prior to the start of his campaign, we find they do not. Therefore it's a stretch for Clinton to say, "He said one thing and did another." But we're checking Clinton's claim that "(Obama) did accept donations from lobbyists and PACs and he spent money in this campaign from that, through his political action committee." And Obama's leadership PAC did accept $16,000 from lobbyists, and another $125,000 from PACs, even though it was collected before Obama was an announced candidate. And nearly half of Hopefund's money was spent on key primary states during the campaign. So we rate Clinton's claim True.
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Former U.S. Sen. Mike Gravel, 77, returned from oblivion to a momentary spot on the national stage when he announced March 26, 2008, that he had joined the Libertarian Party. But the central question of his candidacy β€” is it one? β€” remained. Earlier that month he put a video on YouTube complaining that the site's YouChoose page no longer featured him. "Apparently I've been relegated to a footnote at YouTube," Gravel says in the video. "I'm one of three candidates in the presidential race, Obama, Hillary and myself. I am a candidate. I have not withdrawn." PolitiFact set out to confirm Gravel's status. We started by checking to see if Gravel was on the ballot in any of the upcoming Democratic nominating contests. Some state officials had no idea who we were asking about. "Could you spell that?" asked Bowen Greenwood, communications director for the secretary of state of Montana (primary, June 3). Greenwood went to check and came back with: "The elections folks tell me they've never heard of him. I confess, I've never heard of him either." West Virginia (May 13) had not heard from him. Neither had South Dakota (June 3). Puerto Rico (June 1) was finalizing its candidate list, but didn't expect Gravel to be on it. And in Guam (May 3), Tony Charfauros, chairman of the Democratic Party, said: "Are you talking about Mike Gravel who used to be a candidate for president?" Gravel told us he's on the ballot in North Carolina (May 6) and Oregon (May 20). Turns out he is confirmed for the North Carolina primary, but not Oregon. Scott Moore, chief of communications for the Oregon secretary of state, told us they would have been happy to put Gravel on the ballot, but his campaign never filed the paperwork. He's also not on the ballot in Pennsylvania (April 22), Indiana (May 6) or Kentucky (May 20). Adding it all up, Gravel is on the ballot in just one of the 10 remaining contests. We also determined that Gravel has zero delegates, virtually no fundraising and a campaign staff that amounts to "the better part of about a half dozen people," according to deputy campaign manager Jon Kraus. So, is Gravel still a candidate? He is. Just not for the Democrats. Gravel said he "has pretty much had it" with the Democrats and thinks they have cut their ties to him. Yet he's intent on being on the November ballot one way or another. In fact, he hopes to seal the deal in Denver. But not at the Democratic convention. At the Libertarian convention β€” May 22-26, 2008. "Right now he's actively pursuing the Libertarian nomination," Kraus said. Despite the fact that no one will believe us, we find Gravel is actively pursuing a presidential nomination in 2008, albeit with the Libertarians since he has exhausted his chances as a Democrat. So his statement, while possibly delusional, is totally True.
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They have online names like fiberguy, dittoheadAZ and Hank the Tank. And they're among scores who have made blog postings and sent e-mails passing on a quote they attribute to Sen. Barack Obama: "My friends, we live in the greatest nation in the history of the world. I hope you'll join with me as we try to change it." The quote is almost always accompanied by a barb that asks why the candidate would want to change something that is so great. It appears, however, that Obama never made the remark. It originated in a Jan. 28, 2008, blog post on The Corner, a blog at National Review Online. The poster was Mark Steyn, the Canadian columnist, author and conservative commentator, who was passing along a made-up, tongue-in-cheek stump speech crafted by a "correspondent of mine." Steyn, whose work appears in many newspapers and is a frequent guest on conservative radio and TV, has his own Web site. Said Victoria Ayrsmith, an assistant editor at SteynOnline.com: "The alleged quote is, in fact, a letter from one of Mark's readers, who devised a parodic all-purpose stump speech written in the aftermath of Iowa and New Hampshire when Senators McCain and Clinton were claiming to be 'agents of change.' There is no mention of Barack Obama anywhere in the item at all." If fact, it was attributed to no one, not even its intended targets, McCain and Clinton. Ayrsmith continued: "The letter was submitted to the Mailbox page at our Web site, but Mark thought it a funny enough joke to merit a stand-alone post at National Review. It is the inspired creation of one of his readers north of the border β€” John Gross, who lives in the Province of Quebec. Mr. Gross certainly deserves credit, if only because, with all the attention it's getting, it seems likely to be in the next edition of Bartlett's." Some of the confusion may have come from the headline Steyn placed on his original post, "Barracking Barack." We contacted Obama's campaign. But on a week when his staff was consumed with fallout from Obama's ties to Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., they seemed unconcerned about the inquiry. A staffer who asked not to be named said, "I don't think he said this but I'm not 100 percent sure." We conducted a thorough electronic search of all print stories as well as transcripts of television and radio programs, news conferences and press briefings. There is no record that Obama or any other candidate publicly uttered the words in question. More evidence: A Google search of the quote finds no mention of it before Steyn's Jan. 28 post. Our fact-checking cousins at Snopes.com also looked into the quote and the claims that Obama said it. They found them false. We'll second that. In fact, it's so false it's Pants on Fire wrong.
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What politicians have said on TV often comes back to haunt them. Sen. John McCain knows that feeling after Sen. Barack Obama recalled a past statement McCain made about Social Security solvency on a Sunday morning news show. In a June 13, 2008, speech to senior citizens in Columbus, Ohio, Obama outlined his plan to require those earning $250,000 or more to contribute more in payroll taxes while keeping all other tax levels constant. Then Obama dropped this line: "There was a time when John McCain thought this wasn't such a bad idea. When he was asked a few years ago whether he could see himself lifting the cap on the payroll tax, he said, 'I could.' But today he's attacking me for holding the very same position." McCain never put specific salary parameters to the issue, but he did tell Tim Russert on a Feb. 20, 2005, edition of Meet the Press that he would consider increasing the Social Security payroll tax to help keep the system solvent. Here's the relevant material from the transcript: Russert: Sen. McCain, there's a big debate in your Republican Party about whether or not, as part of the solution to Social Security's solvency problem, that you lift the cap so that you would pay payroll tax, Social Security tax, not just on the first $90,000 of your income, but perhaps even higher. Could you support that as part of a compromise? Sen McCain: As part of a compromise I could, and other sacrifices, because we all know that it doesn't add up until we make some very serious and fundamental changes. (At the time, the cap stood at $90,000. In January 2008, it rose to the current level of $102,000.) Reacting to Obama's assertion, McCain's advisers told reporters in a June 2008 conference call that he would not "under any imaginable circumstance" consider raising the payroll tax. During the conference call, campaign advisers didn't address McCain's 2005 statement on Meet the Press. Neither McCain's campaign nor the Obama camp returned calls seeking more information. But the record is clear in verifying Obama's statement. We rule it True.
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In one of his first ads since winning the Democratic nomination for president, Sen. Barack Obama speaks directly to the camera about his life story and his legislative accomplishments. "America is a country of strong families and strong values," the ad begins. "My life's been blessed by both. I was raised by a single mom and my grandparents. We didn't have much money, but they taught me values straight from the Kansas heartland where they grew up." Later in the ad, Obama says, "I passed laws moving people from welfare to work, cut taxes for working families and extended health care for wounded troops who'd been neglected." For his statement that he "extended health care for wounded troops who'd been neglected," the campaign points to a couple of pieces of legislation. In 2008, Obama and Sen. Claire McCaskill contributed key portions to the National Defense Authorization Act that required postdeployment mental health screenings and a national study on the needs of Iraq veterans. We looked into the legislative history of the bill and found that Obama and McCaskill can at least take some credit for developing the list of requirements. It's not a major extension of benefits, however. Another problem for Obama is that he missed the final vote on the bill because he was campaigning. Republican nominee John McCain missed it, too. The bill passed overwhelmingly, 91-3. The other piece of legislation the campaign points to is an amendment Obama passed that picked up the tab for meals and phone calls for Iraq veterans receiving outpatient treatment. We looked at this legislation previously when Obama talked about it at a debate in Las Vegas in early 2008. Obama closed a loophole for outpatient veterans; hospitalized veterans were already covered. So in fairness, this was a tweak to previous legislation. If Obama had said he had helped extend health care for wounded veterans who'd been neglected, we would have given him a better rating. But he phrased his accomplishment to take more of the credit than that. Missing the vote on the 2008 bill does not help his case. For all of these reasons, we find his statement Half True.
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The Roe v. Wade charge against John McCain seems to be the result of a verbal lapse eight years ago by the notably anti-abortion McCain. McCain had answered written questionnaires saying he opposed Roe v. Wade, but when the San Francisco Chronicle and CNN asked him about it in late 1999, McCain said, "I'd love to see a point where it (the court ruling) is irrelevant, and could be repealed because abortion is no longer necessary. But certainly in the short-term, or even the long-term, I would not support repeal of Roe vs. Wade, which would then force X number of women in America to (undergo) illegal and dangerous operations." McCain aides almost immediately started backpedaling from McCain's words, noting that McCain misspoke when he used the phrase "even in the long term." McCain said in an interview a few months later, "I clearly misspoke there. I'm a person who's made mistakes in this campaign, and I'll continue to make mistakes. My voting record is clear, of 17 years of pro-life. I continue to hold that position, and I … continue to believe that Roe vs. Wade was a very flawed decision, as in the opinion of most experts." In South Carolina this year, McCain said, "I do not support Roe versus Wade. It should be overturned." We find McCain's brief remark of support falls short of a full-fledged change in position, so we rated Romney's claim Half True. On ethanol, McCain has maintained a long-standing opposition to subsidies for the alternative fuel and that hasn't changed. But the way he talks about ethanol has changed significantly. In 1999, he told an audience in Iowa, where corn-based ethanol is popular: "I'm here to tell you the things you don't want to hear as well as the things you want to hear. One of those things is ethanol. Ethanol is not worth it. It does not help the consumers. … Those ethanol subsidies should be phased out. And everybody here on this stage, if it wasn't for the fact that Iowa is the first caucus state, would share my view that we don't need ethanol subsidies." In 2007, McCain started to speak more favorably of ethanol and admitted it was a position change. He told Tim Russert on "Meet the Press": "It makes a lot of sense. We are dependent on foreign oil too much. We have a situation where greenhouse gases has now become--emissions has become a vital issue. I am for sugarcane, biofuels, switch grass, and corn-based ethanol because of our need for independence on foreign oil. … I have adjusted to the realities of the world we live in today, and if I don't adjust to those realities, then I would be stuck in the past." That's a significant change in opinion on the biofuel. We found the statement that McCain used to oppose ethanol but now supports it to be Mostly True.
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Clinton says the U.S. needs a plan for leaving Iraq, but she has thus far avoided setting a deadline. In her statements on Iraq, Clinton has consistently said the U.S. commitment of troops in Iraq can be neither open-ended nor set to a rigid deadline. Se also has advocated a well-planned exit from Iraq. Obama has been a consistent critic of the rationale for the war in Iraq. His support for withdrawal includes exceptions for national interest and for the Iraqi government to meet benchmarks for progress. The pull-out legislation he proposed in 2007, which set a deadline to have all troops out by March 31, 2008, included provisions to stop the withdrawal if national interests would be jeopardized by continuing Sen. John McCain has been a member of the U.S. Congress since 1982, but as he runs for president, he's putting as much rhetorical distance between himself and his Capitol Hill colleagues as possible. While defending his support for a gas tax holiday in a June 18, 2008, interview, McCain tarred his fellow members of Congress as "rather wealthy" folks who are "out of touch" with the needs and fears of working people on fixed incomes. "You know, the approval rating of Congress is down to 13 percent," he said. "Maybe they ought to pay a little more attention to their constituents." On June 11, an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll awarded Congress a 13 percent approval rating. And that's the same figure McCain offered. During roughly the same time period, Gallup, Fox News and AP/Ipsos all conducted polls which put the approval rating at 19, 19 and 23 percent respectively. All had margins of error of between 3 and 4 percentage points. When Democrats took slim control of Congress in early 2007, there was a brief honeymoon, but approval has steadily dropped, said Scott Keeter, director of survey research at the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. Thanks in part to its relatively faceless quality, Congress makes a convenient whipping boy when the nation is dissatisfied, Keeter said. (The same Gallup poll that put Congress at 19 percent found that 30 percent of respondents approved of President George W. Bush.) And dissatisfied we are. The NBC News/Wall Street Journal approval rating of 13 percent was a record low for the poll, besting a 15 percent rating in April 1992. Though the NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll is slightly out of step with others recently conducted, it's highly reputable and there's no way to prove the figure false, Keeter said. And anyway, he said, whether it's 13 percent or 23 percent, it's not good news for Congress. McCain may have chosen the poll figure that most dramatically made his point, but the numbers are as good as any and the overall picture he presented β€” that of a public overwhelmingly displeased with Congress β€” is right on. We rule his statement True.
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In one of his first ads since winning the Democratic nomination for president, Sen. Barack Obama speaks directly to the camera about his life story and his legislative accomplishments. "America is a country of strong families and strong values," the ad begins. "My life's been blessed by both. I was raised by a single mom and my grandparents. We didn't have much money, but they taught me values straight from the Kansas heartland where they grew up." Later in the ad, Obama says, "I passed laws moving people from welfare to work, cut taxes for working families and extended health care for wounded troops who'd been neglected." The claim that Obama moved people from welfare to work goes back to his days as a state senator in the Illinois legislature. President Bill Clinton and Congress significantly overhauled welfare in 1996, requiring recipients to work and setting time limits on benefits. The states in turn had to change their laws to meet the new federal requirements. In 1997, Obama signed up as a chief co-sponsor (one of five in the senate) on Illinois' version of the legislation. But the Illinois governor at the time, Republican Jim Edgar, got a lot of credit as well. Press reports from the time referred to the plan as "the Edgar plan." This isn't the first time Obama has referred to Illinois laws as if he passed them singlehandedly . Nevertheless, the legislation's primary role was welfare reform, and the legislative record shows that Obama had a leadership role in getting it passed. For these reasons, we find Obama's claim Mostly True.
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In one of his first ads since winning the Democratic nomination for president, Sen. Barack Obama speaks directly to the camera about his life story and his legislative accomplishments. "America is a country of strong families and strong values," the ad begins. "My life's been blessed by both. I was raised by a single mom and my grandparents. We didn't have much money, but they taught me values straight from the Kansas heartland where they grew up." Later in the ad, Obama says, "I passed laws moving people from welfare to work, cut taxes for working families and extended health care for wounded troops who'd been neglected." The tax cuts Obama is referring to are from his time as a state senator in the Illinois Legislature. In 2000, the Legislature created a state earned income tax credit, based on the federal earned income tax program, which is a tax credit for low-income working individuals and families. The program is meant "to offset the burden of Social Security taxes and to provide an incentive to work," according to the Internal Revenue Service. In the federal version, when the tax credit exceeds the amount of taxes owed, it results in a tax refund to those who qualify. In the Illinois bill that Obama co-sponsored, state taxes can go to zero, but there is no additional refund. In the 2000 legislation, the legislative record shows that Obama was one of more than 40 senators that co-sponsored the bill, with most of them signing up for it on the same day. But the bill had a sunset clause, and when it came time to renew it in 2003, Obama filed the bill and was its chief sponsor. Another 20 senators signed on to co-sponsor it. Rather than renewing it for another few years, the Obama bill made the state earned income tax credit permanent. The record shows Obama was a minor co-sponsor in cutting taxes in 2000 and was the leader in the state Senate in 2003 in making the tax credits permanent. It takes more than one person to pass a bill, and although he played a significant role in making the tax credits permanent, the record on Obama's statement supports only a Mostly True.
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The presidential candidates are fond of talking about how we like to borrow from Peter to pay Paul, and how bad this is. ( Read our story on this phenomenon here .) "We took out a credit card from the bank of China and the bank of Saudi in the name of our kids, borrowing money to finance this war," Obama said on the campaign trail in May 2008. "You're going to be paying them interest for generations to come -- that makes us weaker." Obama's correct in his implication that the U.S. is borrowing money to fund the war, because the U.S. government is running budget deficits, meaning the government is spending more money than it brings in through taxes and fees. Of course, the government cannot just print extra paper money when it needs to spend or it would devalue U.S. currency. Instead, it issues, or more precisely sells, U.S. Treasury securities, which are simply IOUs that guarantee repayment with interest. Many U.S. citizens buy them, often in the form of U.S. bonds, but so do many foreign countries, who see them as a safe, stable investment. The number one holder of U.S. Treasury securities among foreign countries isn't China or Saudi Arabia. It's actually Japan. China is number two, the United Kingdom is number three, and a group of oil-producing countries (which includes Saudi Arabia) is number four. So, here's the problem with Obama's argument. And with McCain's. And with Clinton's, while we're at it. All have made similar statements. The bonds the government sells are not program-specific so there is no direct relationship between the holder of bonds and any particular expense of the U.S. government. Obama could have easily said that Japan or the United Kingdom is lending us money to pay for the war, and that would have been just as true as what he did say. So Obama is correct in his point that the government is spending borrowed money, and that some of our lenders include China and Saudi Arabia. But the lenders also include countries that we think of as friends and allies. By naming only lending nations that might alarm voters, Obama is distorting the picture somewhat. So for this reason, we find his statement Half True.
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In a Christmas message that ran as a television ad, John Edwards said he wanted to remember the less fortunate. He opened with the surprising statistic: One in four homeless people is a vet. Counting the number of homeless people is a challenging proposition, much less quantifying their military backgrounds. The number appears to come from a November 2007 study from the National Alliance to End Homelessness. The nonprofit used data from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs that estimated the number of homeless veterans in a given VA facility's service area. The alliance than combined that data with their own population estimates for the homeless nationwide. The study cited data from 2005 that showed out of 744,313 homeless people in a given year, 194,254 were veterans. That means that 26 percent of the homeless are veterans, even though veterans only make up 11 percent of the U.S. population over 18 years old, according to U.S. Census data. The study counted people who were homeless at any time, even briefly, during the year, not just the chronically homeless. It's also worth noting that the number of homeless veterans fluctuates over time because of natural demographic changes and because of the numbers of people who served in the military at any given time in history. Homeless advocates expect the percentage of homeless veterans is a number that changes as the years go by. The 2007 study is an estimate, but it's based on data compiled, at least in part, by a federal agency, and it appears to be the latest data available. Other studies have found lower estimates of the national homeless population, but using a more conservative number for the overall homeless would have the effect of increasing the percentage of homeless veterans. Although Edwards is relying on the best available data, it's still extremely difficult to count homeless people because not all of them come in contact with service providers or other agencies. Some have health issues like addiction and mental illness that make them reluctant to be counted. Even reputable studies sometimes find different estimates for the homeless. Though the percentage of homeless veterans is an estimate, the number Edwards cites appears to be based on the latest available and was partially compiled by the federal agency that serves veterans. So he is on solid ground. But we have to take off a little bit for his emphatic statement of what's actually a complex estimate. For that reason, we find his statement to be Mostly True.
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In a Democratic debate on Nov. 15, 2007, Bill Richardson had a startling way to support his view that the situation in Iraq is not improving: "What I'm saying, also, is that look at this statistic β€” 65 percent of the Iraqi people now say it's okay to shoot an American soldier." Where did that number come from? Katie Roberts, Richardson's deputy communications director, points to a BBC-sponsored poll of Iraqis in September 2007. BBC says the poll was conducted in face-to-face interviews with 2,212 people "in more than 450 neighborhoods across all 18 provinces of Iraq in August, and has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5%." But the poll does not directly support the 65 percent figure. Nor does the poll put the question nearly as starkly as Richardson stated. "Thinking about the political action of other people," the question says, "do you find each of these items to be acceptable or not acceptable?" The first item was "attacks on coalition forces," and 57 percent of the respondents found them "acceptable." Among Sunnis, 93 percent said "acceptable;" among Shiites, it was 50 percent, and among Kurds, it was 5 percent. It's not at all clear that the same number would have said it is acceptable if people had been asked, "Is it okay to shoot an American soldier?" So Richardson is at least casting the response in more dramatic terms than the question interviewers asked. At the same time, the poll clearly suggests that about half of the Iraqi people consider attacks on coalition forces "acceptable." The Richardson campaign did not respond to our request to explain the disparity in numbers. Polling expert John G. Geer, professor of political science at Vanderbilt University and editor of the forthcoming Encyclopedia of Public Opinion, theorized that Richardson excluded the responses of Kurds. Sure enough, if you subtract the 354 Kurd responses from the 2,212 total, the math supports Richardson's 65 percent figure. This makes sense if you consider many Kurds would eventually like to have a state of their own. But removing the Kurds exaggerates the poll results and does not accurately reflect Richardson's statement, which referred only to "the Iraqi people." "The question," says Geer, "is whether 'attacks on coalition forces' equates to 'shooting an American soldier,' which of course it doesn't. Possibly they'd be more likely to say it's acceptable, I don't know." He adds, "It's generally a fair point to say Iraqis are unhappy with the American presence in Iraq. The general point has some validity, but he's exaggerated. That's what campaigns do." And what we do is call them on it. Richardson wasn't just "juicing the numbers," as Geer said. He was deliberately hyping the language and hyping the numbers to make a stronger point than the facts justified. The best we can rule is Barely True. Editor's note: This statement was rated Barely True when it was published. On July 27, 2011, we changed the name for the rating to Mostly False.
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An anonymous e-mail says Barack Obama took the oath of office for the U.S. Senate on a Koran, the holy book of Islam. We thought it would be odd if that were true, since Obama is a Christian. In fact, it is wrong. The e-mail also spells the book's name "Kuran," though usually it is spelled Koran or Quran. Two press reports from Obama's swearing-in ceremony in January 2005 mention specifically that Obama took the oath of office by placing his hand on his own copy of the Bible. The Barack Obama campaign also confirmed that it was a Bible and that the book belonged to Obama. Vice President Dick Cheney, in his role as president of the Senate, administered the oath. After being raised outside of any particular faith tradition, Obama became a Christian in his mid 20s and is a member of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. (Obama gave what are arguably his most extended remarks on his faith at the "Call to Renewal" religious conference in 2006; read the speech here .) We suspect this false claim was inspired by the 2007 swearing-in of Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., an American convert to Islam and the first Muslim elected to Congress. Ellison used a Koran that once belonged to Thomas Jefferson, borrowing the rare book from the Library of Congress. It goes without saying that Ellison is not Obama. And with its intent to inflame, we find the e-mail's allegation not only false, but Pants-on-Fire wrong. UPDATE: Barack Obama resigned from Trinity United Church of Christ on May 31, 2008, after church pastor Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. made controversial remarks about U.S. foreign policy and other matters. Obama said he intends to join another church after the election.
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An anonymous e-mail makes a number of specious claims to promote its Manchurian Candidate-style conspiracy theory, including, "Obama was enrolled in a Wahabi school in Jakarta. Wahabism is the RADICAL teaching that is followed by the Muslim terrorists who are now waging Jihad against the western world." Like many Internet smears, the e-mail starts with a bit of truth before lurching wildly into fantasy. It's true that Obama's father was from Africa, and Obama has said his father was born a Muslim. Obama's stepfather was from Indonesia, raised a Muslim. But there's no evidence that either man was particularly religious as an adult β€” Obama's father is sometimes described as an atheist, while his stepfather drank alcohol, forbidden in Islam. Obama's American mother, Ann Dunham, rejected organized religion, according to several accounts. Obama has summed up his own faith history by saying he didn't grow up in any particular religious tradition. (Obama's mother, father and stepfather are all deceased.) Obama lived in Indonesia with his mother and stepfather from 1967 to 1971, approximately from the ages of 6 to 10. In 1971, he returned to the United States and graduated from high school in Hawaii. "Madrassa" is an Arabic word for "school," but Americans generally understand the word to mean a school where anti-Western Islamic ideology is taught. The e-mail says the school taught Wahabism, a "RADICAL teaching that is followed by the Muslim terrorists who are now waging Jihad against the western world." Westerners typically understand Wahabism to be an austere form of Islam based on a literal reading of the Koran. So is that the type of school Obama attended? No. Indonesia is a Muslim country, and Obama attended a public school there, which taught a small amount of religion. CNN, the Associated Press, the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune investigated the e-mail claims by visiting the school and interviewing former teachers and students who were there at the same time as Obama. These investigations found a public school where students wore Western clothing and prayer was a small part of the curriculum. The Chicago Tribune reported the school was "so progressive that teachers wore miniskirts and all students were encouraged to celebrate Christmas." PolitiFact found no on-the-record sources able to substantiate a claim that the school taught Wahabism or any other form of austere Islam. The great preponderance of substantiated evidence indicates Obama attended a public school that taught a small amount of mainstream Islam. The news reports say that Obama's registration form indicates his religion was Muslim, but there are errors on the forms and it seems reasonable to assume that he was registered as Muslim simply because his stepfather was Muslim. And it's worth noting β€” as the chain e-mail does β€” that Obama also attended a Catholic school in Indonesia for several years. So while the e-mail gets a few things right, its contention that Obama attended a madrassa that taught Wahabism seems to be a wholesale invention designed to frighten voters. We rate the claim Pants-on-Fire wrong.
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During a campaign stop at a supermarket in Des Moines, Iowa, Hillary Clinton was asked by a shopper to autograph a dollar bill. She refused. "I can't sign money. That's illegal," Clinton said, according to a CBS News video of the exchange. "I'm so sorry." The shopper then showed reporters the dollar, which had apparently been autographed by Clinton's husband. "Well," the shopper said, "Bill signed it." So let's explore whether Sen. Clinton is correct, which would implicate her husband in a federal crime. In fact, the Treasury Department says "defacement of currency" is against the law. The law specifies that "whoever mutilates, cuts, disfigures, perforates, unites or cements together, or does any other thing to any bank bill, draft, note, or other evidence of debt issued by any national banking association, Federal Reserve Bank, or Federal Reserve System, with intent to render such item(s) unfit to be reissued, shall be fined not more than $100 or imprisoned not more than six months, or both." But if Bill is busted for violating Title 18, Section 333, then the feds will also have to prosecute some other prominent law-breakers, including treasury secretaries who have routinely autographed dollar bills, which are printed with their signatures. Like so many laws, this one becomes a matter of interpretation. In this case, it's a question of whether an autograph is a deliberate attempt to deface a bill so it can't be used again. The Treasury Department doesn't think so and says autographing dollar bills is permitted. A department fact sheet says, "Throughout the years, the Secretary of the Treasury and the Treasurer of the United States have autographed currency notes bearing their signatures at the request of private citizens. This practice is not considered as defacement since the autographs are generally provided to persons as keepsakes as opposed to circulating currency." Claudia Dickens, a spokeswoman for the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, said it only becomes a violation when it is mutilated so much that it is" unacceptable to a merchant or vending machine. That's defacing." She said autographing "is certainly not something that the Department of Treasury encourages, but it's not disallowed." And so we find that although Clinton's statement has a germ of truth because defacing dollars is illegal, she is wrong about an innocent autograph. She could have signed that buck without fear of prosecution. We find her statement Barely True. Editor's note: This statement was rated Barely True when it was published. On July 27, 2011, we changed the name for the rating to Mostly False.
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In the immediate wake of the conviction of Antoin "Tony" Rezko, a prominent former fundraiser for Sen. Barack Obama, on federal charges of fraud and money laundering, the Republican National Committee put out a news release that raises questions about whether Obama has profited from his relationship with Rezko. "Could Obama have afforded his home without Rezko's help?" the release asks. Obama and his wife, Michelle, purchased a century-old mansion from a Chicago doctor in 2005 for $1.65-million. On the same day the Obamas closed on their house, Rezko's wife, Rita Rezko, bought a vacant lot next door from the same seller, at the full asking price. While the lots were being sold separately, and the seller has confirmed that the Obamas got no discount from Rezko purchasing the lot next door, the GOP news release suggests Obama flip-flopped on the issue of whether he could afford to buy the vacant lot purchased by Rezko. "Obama originally said that he could not afford to purchase the parcel of land Rezko's wife purchased and that the house itself was already a stretch." "But Obama later said that he did not need help purchasing 'both or either of the tracts' of land involved in the purchase of his Chicago home." The first statement is accurate. It comes from an interview Obama had with the Chicago Tribune, published Nov. 1, 2006: "It was 'already a stretch' to buy the house, Obama said, so the vacant lot was not affordable for his family." The second quote is based on a Time magazine reporter asking Obama for a March 6, 2008, story: "Did you generally or expressively state a need for help in buying both or either of the tracts?" Obama: "No, I didn't need help." This answer isn't the clear contradiction it's made out to be. Obama was not asked if he could afford to buy both of the tracts, he was asked if he ever told Rezko that he needed help buying both or either of the tracts. In an interview with the Chicago Sun-Times in March 2008, Obama said the sellers had originally sought to sell the house together with the vacant lot next door, but when the property sat on the market for a long time, they decided to separate the lots. The second vacant lot was big enough to be developed. So by the time the Obamas first saw the house, it was being marketed separately. Obama has consistently said that he only ever pursued the purchase of the home, not the lot. In that context, he would have had no reason to tell Rezko he couldn't afford both lots. And with his recent book advances, he apparently had the money to buy the house without Rezko's help. (His 2005 financial disclosure form states that he received $378,239 in book royalties; and $847,167 in a book advance.) His answer to Time appears to reflect that. The GOP appears to be parsing words in hopes of scoring a "gotcha" that just isn't there. We rate the statement False.
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In a Sept. 14, 2007 interview on MSNBC, Romney said, "I have not changed my position on the marriage amendment or anything else related to marriage that ...you know, I think the New York Times said that I had changed my tone." Here's a look at his comments over the years: In 1994, as a candidate for the U.S. Senate, he told a Boston-area gay newspaper that the definition of marriage was a "state issue as you know -- the authorization of marriage on a same-sex basis falls under state jurisdiction." During his Senate race, Romney wrote in a letter to the Massachusetts branch of the Log Cabin Republicans, "I am more convinced than ever before that as we seek to establish full equality for America's gay and lesbian citizens, I will provide more effective leadership than my opponent." He promised the group that he would support laws preventing discrimination against gays and lesbians in the workplace and implied his hope for the eventual full integration of gays in the military. But even in 1994, he clearly opposed legalizing same-sex marriage, telling the Bay Windows newspaper that he backed the current governor's position that the law should only uphold male-female marriages. In 2002, when Romney was governor, his wife, son and daughter-in-law signed a petition supporting a proposed amendment to the Massachusetts constitution, that would not only ban the state from recognizing same-sex marriages, but further stated, "Any other relationship shall not be recognized as a marriage or its legal equivalent, nor shall it receive the benefits or incidents exclusive to marriage." But Romney quickly expressed his opposition to the amendment, saying that although he believed marriage was between a man and a woman, the language barring civil unions was "too extreme," with his spokesman telling the Boston Globe, "Mitt does not support it. As far as Mitt is concerned, it goes farther than current law, and therefore it's unnecessary." Yet in 2003, when the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled that same-sex couples could be married in the state, Romney urged the legislature to adopt a constitutional amendment banning the practice. He has since supported a similar amendment to the U.S. Constitution, despite the fact that the congressionally proposed constitutional amendment includes language similar to the 2002 Massachusetts ballot proposal that he opposed. And so we give Romney a Half-True. He is correct that he has been consistent in his opposition to same-sex marriage, but has changed his position as to the scope of an amendment that he would support.
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In an interview on MSNBC, Romney tried to turn the tables on his Republican rivals -- who have accused him of flip-flopping on various issues -- by saying he was more consistent on gay marriage than they have been. He said, "I don't think that Rudy (Giuliani) or Fred (Thompson) or John McCain support the marriage amendment. And I think they're in error on that one." Indeed, Romney is the only Republican front-runner unequivocally backing a constitutional gay marriage ban. Giuliani, Thompson and McCain share his opposition to same-sex marriage but they vary in how they would address the issue at the federal level. Romney is the only Republican front-runner to support an amendment to the Constitution, such as the one that failed in Congress last year, which would limit marriage to male-female unions. McCain, who actively opposed the 2006 amendment attempt on the grounds that it was unnecessary and would violate states' rights, says that he would only support such an amendment if the Supreme Court began to strike down state-level gay marriage bans. Thompson has proposed a constitutional amendment that would not ban gay marriages, but would free states from the obligation to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states. That provision was included in the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which Thompson and McCain both supported, but it is still being challenged in the courts. A constitutional amendment would preempt any judicial challenge to the existing law. A spokesman for Giuliani said the former mayor "does not support a federal marriage amendment at this time." Giuliani told CNN's Larry King in February 2007 that he would not support a constitutional amendment, "unless all of a sudden lots of states do what Massachusetts does and kind of come at it from the other side and decide that the Constitution says that -- that you cannot have marriage between a man and a woman. If it stays the way it is, you don't need one." We find Romney's statement on his opponents to be True because he is accurately describing their positions.
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Mike Huckabee illustrates a need for overhauling our health care system by comparing what is spent in the U.S. on health care versus what is spent on what he calls the entire military budget. There are two problems with Huckabee's statement. Here's the first one: The number Huckabee quotes for U.S. military expenses is only what the U.S. Department of Defense spends, which at about $520 billion in 2007 is 3.8 percent of the nation's gross domestic product. But defense spending is spread across many other budgets. According to the White House's Office of Management and Budget, the nation's entire 2007 national defense budget β€” which includes atomic energy and defense-related activities in the departments of Homeland Security, Justice, State and Commerce β€” is $570 billion. That's about 4.2 percent of GDP. So, Huckabee's off, but not by much. Here's the bigger problem. In his statement, Huckabee seems to be comparing federal government spending on the military to total spending in the U.S. on health care. Not just government money, but also private spending. His campaign didn't return phone calls to explain what he meant or from where he drew his statistics. But his 17 percent of GDP most closely resembles a figure cited by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the federal agency responsible for administering health programs. It reported in January 2007 that the U.S. is projected to spend about 16.2 percent of GDP on national health expenditures this year, or about $2.3-trillion. But that's everything. What the federal government spends, what state and local governments spend, what private citizens spend. The same study shows that if you subtract private sector money from the equation, health care expenses by the federal government drop to 5.5 percent of GDP. Add in state and local government spending and you get to 7.6 percent of GDP. Of course, "we," all of us, make up the private sector. So Huckabee has every right to include the private with public expenses when citing the true cost of U.S. health care in proportion to GDP. But comparing that with government-only spending on the military, or anything else, artificially inflates the disparity between the two costs. Editor's note: This statement was rated Barely True when it was published. On July 27, 2011, we changed the name for the rating to Mostly False.
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At a debate, John Edwards talked about his support for universal health care, capping it off by saying he was the first candidate to lay out a specific plan. That's true only if you don't count Dennis Kucinich. Yes, Kucinich is a long-shot candidate, but he's been promoting a fairly specific, universal health care plan since at least 2005 and arguably earlier. The Edwards' campaign responded to a question on this point by saying Edwards meant for the 2008 cycle. We suspect he likely was more focused on his closest rivals, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. And he did beat those two to the health care punch by several months, introducing his plan in February 2007, while Obama introduced his in May and Clinton in September. Edwards' plan requires employers to cover employees or pay into a government fund so employees can buy their own insurance. It also creates regional health care markets so those people don't have to negotiate on their own with insurers. After that, the plan has an individual mandate requiring every person to be insured. Edwards pays for the plan through a combination of cost savings and tax increases on higher income levels. The Kucinich plan, on the other hand, is reflected in a piece of legislation he co-sponsored in the U.S. House. It was introduced in the House in 2005, though Kucinich supported an earlier version during his previous run for president in 2004. It would provide free health care for all, including primary care, prescription drugs, and mental health services. The plan would be paid for by cost savings and tax increases on the top 5 percent of income earners, an increased payroll tax, and taxes on stock and bond transactions. The legislation has little chance of passing, but it's still fairly specific and it's certainly universal. Edwards may have had caveats in mind when he made his comment, but "first" means "first," and Edwards wasn't.
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The full quote from Mike Huckabee's interview: "One thing I have to admire about Rudy, and he was I think courageous to go to the NRA, because his past positions -- he's sued gun manufacturers. He was supportive of Brady. He was supportive of things like assault weapon bans, which really is a misnomer, because it's really ridiculous to call a semiautomatic weapon an assault weapon." We find Huckabee's claims are accurate. In 2000, during Giuliani's term as mayor, he announced that New York City was filing a lawsuit against two dozen gun manufacturers. The city alleged practices such as deliberately producing more guns than could be legally bought and ignoring illegal sales by gun distributors. Giuliani has since distanced himself from the lawsuit, recently saying that it "has taken several turns and several twists that [he does not] agree with," but this does not detract from Huckabee's assertion that Giuliani sued gun makers. The Brady Bill, which created a waiting period for handgun purchases and background checks, became law in 1993. The Assault Weapons Ban, which prohibited the sale of some semi-automatic weapons, expired in 2004 after 10 years on the books. In a February, 2007 interview Giuliani was asked about them both and said: "I was in favor of it because I thought that it was necessary both to get the crime bill passed and also necessary with the 2,000 murders or so that we were looking at," annually in New York City at the time. Currently, Giuliani's stance on gun control is "that we need to enforce laws that exist, as opposed to passing new laws that infringe on individual rights." Huckabee's claims, however, deal with Giuliani's past positions rather than his current ones, and as such are accurate.
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A new TV ad from the McCain campaign portrays the Arizona senator as a leader in the fight against global warming. The ad begins with fast-paced music and horns honking. It shows black-and-white scenes of crowded freeways, smokestacks belching and a glacier collapsing. "John McCain stood up to the president and sounded the alarm on global warming . . . five years ago," the narrator says. The stark black-and-white scenes are replaced by more pleasant color footage of a wind turbine against a bright blue sky and water flowing through a dam. "Today, he has a realistic plan that will curb greenhouse gas emissions. A plan that will help grow our economy and protect our environment." With images such as a newspaper headline that says "McCain climate views clash with GOP," the ad portrays McCain as an independent voice on climate change. Indeed, the Congressional Record shows that McCain spoke up about global warming in January 2003. And as chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, he held hearings on the issue several years before that. On Jan. 9, 2003, McCain and Sen. Joe Liberman introduced the Lieberman-McCain Climate Stewardship Act, which sought to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by capping them and allowing companies and utilities to sell or trade their emission rights. When he introduced the bill, McCain called it "the first comprehensive piece of legislation" in capping emissions. "The U.S. is responsible for 25 percent of the worldwide greenhouse gas emissions," he said. "It is time for the U.S. government to do its part to address this global problem, and legislation on mandatory reductions is the form of leadership that is required to address this global problem." By contrast, the Bush administration has opposed cap-and-trade programs and preferred voluntary efforts on climate change. Manik Roy, director of congressional affairs for the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, said McCain had actually been working on the climate change bill in 2001, but it got delayed after the 9/11 attacks. The Lieberman-McCain bill ultimately failed in October 2003 by a 43-55 vote, but Roy said it was a key step in "educating the Senate" about how government could respond to global warming. "It is absolutely correct that McCain stood up on this issue, forced the Senate to focus on this issue when nobody else thought it made sense and did it with strong opposition from the White House," Roy said. He called McCain "a huge leader on this issue in the Senate." And so we find McCain's statement to be True.
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Sen. John McCain has a well-deserved reputation in Washington as a pork-buster. The presumptive GOP presidential nominee regularly castigates colleagues when they insert language in spending bills forcing taxpayers everywhere to pay for projects only of interest to a select few. In a recent e-mail to reporters, Sen. Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee, tries to paint McCain as a hypocrite, pointing out that in 2006, McCain co-sponsored legislation with fellow Arizona Republican Sen. Jon Kyl "that asked for $10-million for an academic center at the University of Arizona named in honor of William Rehnquist, the former U.S. Supreme Court chief justice." In essence, Obama argued, McCain had "lobbied for (a) $10-million pork project." The New York Times, which wrote about the bill in February 2006, reported that some saw it at the time as a pork-barrel project. Reporter Carl Hulse wrote that "while the goal" of a Rehnquist center "may be laudable," critics were calling it "a classic case of lawmakers' trying to funnel money directly to a home-state institution for a project that should find financing elsewhere." Aides to McCain told Hulse the difference between McCain's proposal and the projects McCain so often derides as "pork," lies in the way the project was pursued. Pork projects, the aides argued, are attached to massive spending bills with little or no debate. McCain's proposal was introduced as a standalone bill that could only advance with some measure of debate. In the end, McCain's bill never got out of committee. That's a fair point, but even McCain allies told the New York Times that it was the type of project that should be funded at the local level, or with private funds. "If it doesn't meet the technical term of earmark, it would probably meet the public idea of one," Pete Sepp, a vice president at the National Taxpayers Union, said at the time. We see McCain's point that pork projects are earmarks for funding that are attached with little or no debate to spending bills. McCain has long said the big objection to such projects is as much about the short-cut process for for approving them as it is about the value of the projects being funded. But another important aspect of a pork project is its parochial nature. Pork projects are typically only of interest to people in a particular region, and those people, pork-busters like McCain usually argue, should be the ones to pay for it. The latter is what's at stake in the request for $10-million for an academic center at the University of Arizona, even if it is named after the late U.S. chief justice. For a purist on spending like McCain, it's hard to argue this wasn't a parochial, pork-barrel project. As a result, we find Obama's charge Mostly True.
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After attacking Sen. John McCain and President George W. Bush on Iraq, taxes and energy, an ad from the Campaign to Defend America finally turns to health care. "Absolutely no plan for universal health care. McSame as Bush." Universal health care has been much debated in the Democratic primary campaign, but hardly mentioned on the Republican side. The consensus among health care experts is that to achieve universal health care β€” the intention to cover every person with no exceptions β€” there must be a legal requirement for care, such as a mandate for individuals to buy insurance . In the Democratic primary campaign, Sen. Hillary Clinton supports an individual mandate, while Sen. Barack Obama opposes it on the grounds that its implementation could penalize the working poor. Bush does not support any sort of health care mandate, nor does McCain. "On health care we trust patients to make decisions, not bureaucrats in Washington, D.C.," Bush said on March 13, 2008, at a Republican Congresional Committee dinner. At a health care forum on Oct. 31, 2007, hosted by the Kaiser Family Foundation, McCain said he opposed mandates, even while discussing plans to improve access to health care. "I don't think that there should be a mandate for every American to have health insurance. I think that one of our goals should be that every American own their own home. But I'm not going to mandate that every American own their own home," McCain said. McCain does have a health care plan, but there's no clause for making it apply to everyone and therefore universal. So we find this claim to be True.
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An ad goes after Sen. John McCain for being just like President George W. Bush, hitting McCain on Iraq, oil companies and health care. It also criticizes him on tax policy. "A millionaire who's for tax cuts for millionaires. McSame as Bush," the ad states. It's true that Bush and McCain are both millionaires, with McCain being somewhat wealthier. Bush's net worth in 2006 was between $7.6-million and $20.1-million, based on his personal financial disclosures required by law and analyzed by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. McCain, meanwhile, is worth somewhere between $27.8-million and $45-million. (Sen. Hillary Clinton's net worth is between $10.4-million and $51-million, while Sen. Barack Obama's is between $456,012 and $1.1-million.) So McCain and Bush are both millionaires, and that part of the statement is correct. We couldn't find any proposals John McCain supports that offer new tax cuts for millionaires, so we suspect this is a reference to McCain's support of the Bush tax cuts. Bush's tax cuts lowered rates across the board for those who pay federal income taxes, so they benefited both millionaire and nonmillionaire taxpayers. But data compiled from the Congressional Budget Office indicate that millionaires saw the most sizable drops to their tax rates measured as a share of income. Those tax cuts will expire during the next presidential administration unless Congress acts to keep them in place. McCain actually opposed the Bush tax cuts before changing his mind and supporting them now. He said the reason for his change of heart is that rescinding the tax cuts would be the equivalent of a tax increase after they had been in effect for so long. (Both Obama and Clinton want to roll back the Bush tax cuts for higher incomes.) If you're trying to identify the candidate who supports the Bush tax cuts, McCain is your man. But we're concerned that the ad leaves the impression that McCain advocates new, additional tax cuts for millionaires rather than keeping the present situation in place. For that reason, we knock this claim down one peg on the Truth-O-Meter and find it Mostly True.
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An ad from the Campaign to Defend America attacks Sen. John McCain as being the same as President George W. Bush on a number of issues, including Iraq, taxes and health care . It also bashes the two on energy policy. "Oil companies, they get tax breaks while we pay at the pump. McSame as Bush," the ad states. The Bush administration's signature energy initiative was the Energy Policy Act of 2005, a major piece of legislation that included subsidies and incentives for several sectors of the energy industry, including oil companies. It was the first national energy legislation in more than a decade, and the Bush administration worked for several years to get it passed. We ruled previously that the bill contained significant measures to encourage clean energy . To be sure, the bill still had its detractors. Some people felt it included too many incentives for industry and too little to help consumers. Those detractors included McCain. "This bill does little to address the immediate energy crisis we face in this country," he said in a statement his Senate office issued at the time. "The handouts to big business and oil companies are irresponsible and will be disastrous for the people of Arizona. I cannot in good conscience vote to pass legislation that does not adequately address issues related to energy efficiency, security, and energy independence." The statement noted that McCain liked the plan's reliability standards and incentives for new refinery capacity, but concluded that the bad outweighed the good. McCain also said he opposed it because it might make pump prices higher with its mandates for the increased use of ethanol. On the final vote on the bill, McCain was one of 26 senators who voted against it. ( Hillary Clinton also opposed it while Barack Obama voted for it. ) The McSame ad doesn't mention this legislation specifically, but it was a priority of the Bush administration and a notable source of tax breaks for the oil and gas industry. McCain opposed it. You can't call them the "McSame" for such a significant difference. For this reason, we find the statement False.
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An advertisement uses the refrain "McSame as Bush" to criticize Sen. John McCain for taking the same positions as President George W. Bush. It starts with Iraq and then goes on to taxes, energy and health care. On Iraq, the ad says, "A trillion dollars in Iraq over the next 10 years. McSame as Bush." We have a few issues with this statement, though it gets its larger point correct. The Congressional Budget Office, at the request of Congress, came up with estimates for how much it would cost to keep troops in both Iraq and Afghanistan for the next 10 years. The CBO estimated it would cost from about $480-billion to just over $1-trillion, depending on the number of troops. The analysis makes clear that troop levels in Iraq drive the dollar amount higher. The higher estimate assumes troop levels of at least 75,000 through 2013, with the number decreasing through 2017. But those are troop levels to which neither Bush nor McCain has publicly committed. McCain has said troops should stay as long as needed but that specific troop levels should be dictated by conditions on the ground and the advice of the military. Bush, meanwhile, has declined to speculate on future troop levels, saying it will be up to the next president and leaders of Iraq. Still, Bush and McCain seem to be on the same page on Iraq about not withdrawing troops rapidly. McCain has said troops could remain in Iraq for many years, comparing the situation to continuing U.S. presence in South Korea or Japan. When Bush endorsed McCain, he said, "The good news about our candidate is he'll be a new president, a man of character and courage, but he's not going to change when it comes to taking on the enemy." We find the "McSame" ad fudges the cost in Iraq by not taking into account that the $1-trillion CBO estimate includes future spending in Afghanistan as well. But the ad makes a larger point that Bush and McCain agree on their philosophy for handling the Iraq war and the withdrawal of troops. We find the statement to be Mostly True.
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