The U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s latest onslaught of television ads continues to miseducate voters about the potential impact of the health care law.
Chamber Continues to Mislead on Health Care Law
Group Skews Facts on Obama’s ‘Shameless’ Statements
A group claiming to be backed by veterans has gone too far in a viral Web video that portrays the president as a glory hog after Osama bin Laden’s death.
We cannot dispute the video’s larger point: That President Obama is using Bin Laden’s killing to score political points. But the video – produced by a former Bush-Cheney campaign operative and boasting more than 1 million hits on YouTube — misleads by:
Claiming the Washington Post criticized Obama for having the “Shameless Gall” to score political points.
Tax Credits for Illegal Immigrants
Q: Does the IRS pay billions in tax refunds to workers who are in the U.S. illegally?
A: Yes. The Treasury Department’s Inspector General determined that $4.2 billion was paid in 2010, up from less than $1 billion in 2005. Leading Democrats are resisting a bill that would stop future payments.
May 11: Health Care Spending, HR 347, ‘Julia’
Romney’s ‘Gross’ Exaggeration on ‘Obamacare’
Mitt Romney falsely claims government will “constitute … almost 50 percent” of the U.S. economy when the new federal health care law takes full effect. But Romney gets to 50 percent by erroneously counting all health care spending — private and public — as “effectively under government control once Obamacare is fully implemented,” as his spokesman put it.
That’s nonsense — just as it was two years ago, when Rep. Michele Bachmann made a similar bogus claim.
FactCheck Mailbag, Week of May 1-7
This week, readers sent us letters congratulating us on our Webby wins for best politics website.
In the FactCheck Mailbag, we feature some of the e-mail we receive. Readers can send comments to editor@factcheck.org. Letters may be edited for length.
‘The Life of Julia,’ Corrected
The Obama campaign depends on some false or dubious assumptions in its “Life of Julia” slide show. The infographic depicts a fictional woman whose life from age 3 to 67 is better under the president’s policies than under those of Republican Mitt Romney. But in reality …
Obama Criminalize Free Speech?
Q: Did President Obama secretly sign a law that makes it a crime to protest against him or ask him a question he doesn’t like?
A: No. He openly announced the signing of a bill overwhelmingly passed by Congress that slightly revises a 1971 law against trespassing into areas under Secret Service protection.
Spotlight On: Mark DiBiasio
Mark DiBiasio is a registered Republican in North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District, which means his mailbox is brimming with campaign mailers.
Ten Republicans are trying to win the May 8 primary this year. But one particular candidate, wealthy businessman and former state Sen. Robert Pittenger, is bombarding voters with glossy paper.
“I get half a dozen fliers from him in the same week – sometimes twice a day,” said DiBiasio, 55, an IT consultant who runs a local blog in the Charlotte suburbs.
Primary Piffle in North Carolina
In the final week of a hotly fought Republican primary in North Carolina, one congressional candidate accuses his rival — in a mailer sent to GOP voters — of being a “Big Money Donor” to Democrats. And he accuses another of breaking a tax pledge. But we find both claims by wealthy businessman and former state Sen. Robert Pittenger are off the mark.
In truth, financial adviser Dan Barry, the supposed “Big Money Donor,” contributed to 11 Republicans and only two Democrats in national races between 2003 and 2011.