Author Archives: Brooks Jackson

Misleading Pennsylvania Voters

Posted on April 21, 2008

Summary Clinton and Obama twisted facts unmercifully as they strained to make Pennsylvania voters believe the other is offering a flawed health care plan. An anti-Obama ad by a pro-Clinton group says her plan would "help every American" and implies his would not. In fact, Obama proposes to offer subsidized …
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Gasoline Tax Profits

Posted on April 11, 2008

Q: Does the government really make more in taxes from the sale of a gallon of gasoline than the oil companies do? A: Possibly. Both taxes and profits account for a large share, but which is larger depends on too many unknown factors to allow for a clear answer.

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Oily Words

Posted on April 11, 2008

Summary Clinton and Obama are slamming each other and the oil companies in dueling radio ads in Pennsylvania. Both ads exaggerate and twist the facts. Both ads say, in effect, that the opposing candidate is reluctant to offend oil companies due to campaign donations. The truth is they both propose …
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That Chain E-mail Your Friend Sent to You Is (Likely) Bogus. Seriously.

Posted on March 18, 2008

I’ve noticed that chain e-mails, particularly those about politics, have a lot of things in common: urgent and frightening messages; spelling errors; a tendency to blame mainstream media for not telling the real story; and false, misleading, utterly bogus, and completely off-base claims. If there was ever a case where …
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McCain Voting With Democrats More Than GOP?

Posted on March 8, 2008

Q: Is it true that even though John McCain calls himself a Republican, he has sided more with the Dems than with the Repubs? A: Not true at all. He voted in support of President Bush 95 percent of the time last year, for example.

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Violent Crimes and Handgun Ownership

Posted on March 6, 2008

Q: Are violent crimes more or less common in areas where handgun ownership is higher? A: Some studies have found that murder rates (not crime rates in general) are higher where guns are more prevalent. But social scientists have not found a direct causal relationship between the two factors.

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More NAFTA Nonsense

Posted on March 3, 2008

Barack Obama’s campaign is distributing a mailer in Ohio that plays upon anti-NAFTA feelings in the Buckeye State. But the flier is misleading: Obama is quoted as saying that “one million jobs have been lost because of NAFTA, including nearly 50,000 jobs here in Ohio.” But those figures are highly questionable and from an anti-NAFTA source. Other economic studies have concluded the trade deal resulted in much smaller job losses or even a small net gain.
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Cleveland Clinkers

Posted on February 27, 2008

The Clinton-Obama showdown debate in Cleveland produced several false, twisted or dubious claims, most of which we’ve heard and debunked before. Both Obama and Clinton claimed their health care plans would cut costs more than the other’s, and that experts back them up on that. But experts we talked to said the plans are too similar to predict which would save more, and two experts said neither plan can save nearly as much as the candidates claim.
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Clinton-Obama Pillow Fight

Posted on February 22, 2008 , Corrected on February 25, 2008

The most recent Obama-Clinton debate drew little blood, but we noted a few factual claims that could use correcting or clarifying: Clinton wrongly implied that Obama had little or no accomplishments to his credit. Obama recited a list of achievements at both the state and federal level, which we found to be accurate.
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GDP vs. GNP

Posted on February 18, 2008

Q: What is the difference between GDP and GNP? A: GDP is the market value of everything produced within a country; GNP is the value of what’s produced by a country’s residents, no matter where they live.

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