Readers have been champing at the bit to know our view of the lawsuit brought against Obama by a Philadelphia Hillary supporter, which alleges that the candidate is not a natural-born U.S. citizen. (We know —this again?) Of course only a judge is qualified to legally determine the validity of a suit, so we’ve held off on opining, though we’ve certainly put forth our findings on various aspects of the claim. But we stress that there are no such qualification requirements to bring a suit.
Spread the Tax Hooey!
Summary
Republicans are misrepresenting Obama's tax proposals right down to the bitter end. New radio ads from the McCain campaign and a TV spot from the pro-Republican group Let Freedom Ring are targeting voters nationwide with some of the same tax deceptions we've been hearing all fall, rolled in a bundle and flung through the airwaves. One of the radio ads features Hank Williams Jr., the other Florida Gov. Charlie Crist. But new packaging doesn't make the charges any less false.
A Little Ditty ‘Bout Taxes and Trade
The Obama-Biden campaign has released a radio ad in Indiana featuring favorite native son John Mellencamp. In the ad, Mellencamp says, “John McCain will keep giving tax breaks to companies shipping American jobs overseas.”
Mellencamp is referring to an aspect of the tax code that allows companies to skirt paying U.S. corporate taxes on profits they make overseas and leave overseas. But economists have consistently said this tax provision isn’t a major reason jobs are being sent abroad.
Right Change Is Wrong
Summary
A conservative group called RightChange.com has spent $3 million running ads that largely criticize Obama and his tax plans. They’re false:
Two ads say Obama would tax "small businesses" at a rate of "62 percent." He wouldn’t. That number is an inflated estimate of the very top tax rate, and it doesn’t represent what Obama has proposed.
That false figure includes an increased Social Security tax rate that Obama doesn’t support, plus the state income tax rate paid by people making more than a million dollars a year in California.
Erratic Quotes
The Obama-Biden campaign has a new, unannounced ad that says McCain has been “erratic” in his response to the financial crisis:
The ad includes various critical quotes from editorials in the Washington Post, USA Today and Politico. We looked up the original articles, and all the quotes are in context.
But the ad also cites the August 15 Tax Policy Center report, with text on screen saying “nothing for the middle class.” Within the ad, the words do not appear in quotes,
Taxes, Bailouts, Court Fights and More
Looking for some weekend reading material? Well, the past week has been busy at FactCheck.org. If you haven’t checked out the main site recently, here are several new articles that we hadn’t yet told our Wire readers about:
Right Change Is Wrong
October 24, 2008
A conservative group misleads voters mightily on Obama’s tax plans for small businesses.
The Rifle Association’s ‘True Story’
October 23, 2008
A misleading NRA ad claims Obama voted “to deny citizens the right of self-protection.”
Body Armor Claim: Still False and Nasty
Summary
The liberal group VoteVets.org is running an ad claiming that Republican Sen. Elizabeth Dole "voted against giving our troops" life-saving body armor.
It’s a slightly revised version of an ad the same group ran against four GOP senators in the 2006 election. The claim was false and nasty then, and it’s false and nasty now.
The truth is that there was never a vote to deny body armor to troops, period. Neither of the two funding measures Vote Vets now cites in support of its claim mention body armor specifically,
The Rifle Association’s ‘True Story’
Summary
The National Rifle Association’s misleading attacks on Obama continue. A new ad shows a terrified woman grabbing a gun after an intruder smashes his way into her home. It accuses Obama of voting repeatedly for a measure that would "make you the criminal" in such cases, and voting to "deny citizens the right of self-protection."
The NRA says the incident depicted is "a true story." Not quite.
The actual 2003 burglary didn’t involve a woman,
Court Fight in the Heart of Dixie
Summary
Alabama holds the distinction of having had the nation’s most expensive Supreme Court races, with $54 million spent from 1993 through 2006. This year’s battle for an open seat on the bench seems likely to sustain the pattern, with heaps of cash being thrown down for ads and a tone that has turned ugly.
The attacks in the Alabama campaign have been a departure from what we’ve seen in high court races in most states this year,
Truth Invaders
If you’re like us, you just can’t live without 1) fact-checking and 2) ’80s arcade games. So you can imagine how psyched we were to find Truth Invaders, which lets us use our mad Space Invaders skills to shoot down some of our favorite false claims. And there’s a special bonus for those who blast the bogusness: links to FactCheck.org and our fellow fact-checkers-in-arms at PolitiFact.com, the Washington Post and CNN.
You should check it out.