Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani went beyond the boundaries of what investigators have reported on Sunday when he said the suspect in the 2009 Fort Hood shootings indicated "a desire to participate in jihad" three years before the attack. It is still not clear what the Army knew – and when – about the political views of Maj. Nidal Hasan, or how it failed to identify him as a potential internal threat before the attack that killed 13 people and wounded dozens.
Stories by Eugene Kiely
Director, FactCheck.org
Obama, Guns and ‘The Untouchables’
Q. Did President Obama once say of Republicans: “If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun.”
A: Yes. Obama made those remarks at a fundraiser in Philadelphia during the 2008 presidential campaign. He was paraphrasing a quote from the 1987 mob movie "The Untouchables."
Gov. Rendell’s Outburst Misses Mark
Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell's angry outburst on CBS' "60 Minutes" was more than unexpected. It was factually wrong.
In a segment on slot machine gambling, Rendell lashed out at CBS reporter Lesley Stahl, when she asked about the "downside" of expanding casino gambling. The outgoing Democratic governor, who signed legislation to allow slot machine gambling in 2004 and table games in 2010, said the "biggest downside is that some people lose their paychecks." But he became visibly angry at Stahl for asking if he had second thoughts about signing legislation that caused "new gamblers"
Reid Wrong on Jobs, Tea Party
On NBC’s "Meet the Press," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid exaggerated the latest job gains in the manufacturing sector and grossly minimized tea party victories in the 2010 midterm elections.
In the interview — which NBC taped a day before the Jan. 8 shooting of Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and others in Tucson, Ariz. — Reid spoke about the latest employment numbers. The economy added 113,000 private sector jobs in the month of December, dropping the unemployment rate to 9.4 percent from 9.8 percent.
Congress Not Exempt from Student Loans
Q: Is it true that members of Congress, their staffers and their family members do not have to pay back their student loans?
A: Not true. Some congressional employees are eligible to have up to $60,000 of student loans repaid after several years — just like other federal workers. But that’s not the case for members of Congress or their families.
Let the Distortions Begin
It has been seven whole weeks now since the midterms, and – like you, perhaps – we’ve enjoyed watching football and “Glee” uninterrupted by campaign ads. But that doesn’t mean there’s no campaigning going on. Potential Republican presidential aspirants …
Cash Attack Conference
On Monday, FactCheck.org hosted a post-election conference on political advertising in the 2010 election by outside groups. Our liberal and conservative panelists played some TV ads to illustrate their points – and we couldn’t resist pointing out that we had found a few of them to be misleading. Here’s what we said about some of those ads:
"Crumble,” by California Working Families for Jerry Brown. The ad, funded by a coalition of labor unions, criticizes Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman’s years as CEO of eBay.
Are Federal Workers Overpaid?
President Barack Obama’s recent announcement to freeze the pay of federal civilian workers did little to ice the debate over whether federal workers are overpaid or underpaid. … Both sides are armed with official government statistics, but neither side is right. …
Tax Cuts and Americans: It’s Complicated
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell misrepresented public opinion about the Bush tax cuts, which are due to expire at the end of the year. In his weekly remarks Nov. 20, he made this unequivocal statement:
McConnell, Nov. 20: Americans don’t think we should be raising taxes on anybody, especially in the middle of a recession.
But American opinion on the Bush tax cuts is not as clear as McConnell portrays it. Of five recent polls, only one shows a majority favored extending the tax cut for all Americans.
Pelosi Pablum on ‘Fiscal Discipline’
In a Nov. 9 opinion piece for USA Today, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi presented a lengthy list of Democratic accomplishments since assuming control of the House and Senate in January 2007 — including "restoring fiscal discipline to the Congress." That one stopped us.
The fact is the federal government ended fiscal year 2009 with a $1.4 trillion deficit — the highest deficit as a share of the gross domestic product since 1945. And it only dipped slightly to $1.3 trillion in the fiscal year that just ended on Sept.