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A Project of The Annenberg Public Policy Center

September 5, 2009

The first Labor Day holiday was celebrated on Tuesday, September 5, 1882, in New York City.
Source: The Department of Labor

A False Appeal to Women’s Fears

A conservative group with Republican ties called the Independent Women’s Forum is airing an ad that says “300,000 American women with breast cancer might have died” if our health care were “government run” like England’s, citing the American Cancer Society as a source …

“Clunkers” Credits Taxable?

Q: Will the "Cash for Clunkers" credits be taxed as income for consumers who participated in the program?
A: The act establishing the program prohibits the credit from being treated as income for federal income tax purposes. The credits, however, may be subject to a state or local income tax depending on the laws of the state or locality where the consumer resides.

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Those of you who follow FactCheck.org via RSS may have noticed some temporary glitches with the feed last night. Indeed, several of our more observant readers wrote to us to let us know that our feed was apparently redirecting to a squatter site. We apologize for the mix up.
The problem is corrected now. We’ll be continuing to do some maintenance throughout the day as we work out some of the kinks in our feed. Try not to be too alarmed if you see odd things happening once in a while.

September 4, 2009

AAA projects that 39.1 million Americans will travel 50 miles or more this Labor Day weekend, a decrease of 13.3 percent from last year, when Labor Day travel reached its highest point for this decade.

Source: AAA

Obama and Kenya. Again.

We’ve burned through rather a lot of pixels combating the claims of those who deny that Barack Obama is eligible to be president of the United States. He is, by virtue of having been born in Hawaii, as attested to repeatedly by state officials and even by the flagship of conservative publications, the National Review. And, for the 10 percent of you out there who aren’t entirely sure, yes, Hawaii is part of the United States.

September 3, 2009

The average cost of a family health insurance premium for employer-sponsored coverage more than doubled in the past nine years, going from $5,791 (inflation-adjusted) in 1999 to $12,680 last year.
Source: National Coalition on Health Care

Hitting Grassley With Inflated Numbers

Two liberal groups, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee and Democracy for America are airing an ad that faults Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley for not supporting a "public option" as part of any proposed health care legislation. But their ad uses inflated figures.

Grassley has spoken out against including a "public option" as part of a health care bill. The ad implies that he’s done so because he’s "taken over $2 million dollars from the big health and insurance industries that oppose reform."

September 2, 2009

Sales at family clothing stores in the U.S. in August last year totaled $7.6 billion. December was the only month with significantly higher sales.
Source: Census Bureau

Health Care and the “One Way Hash”

Here at FactCheck.org, we like to complicate things.
The statement isn’t meant to be (entirely) a flippant one. It really is true that a lot of what we do here is to take what appear to be pretty simple claims and show that the reality is far more complicated than it might appear at first glance. Quite often we find ourselves saying things like, "That’s true, but it’s misleading…"
Julian Sanchez, now a research fellow at the Cato Institute,