Rhode Island candidate waves the bloody sock
Jul 28th
Our staff is full of journalists who are nuts for both politics and baseball, so we couldn't help but spotlight a story today by our affiliate, PolitiFact Rhode Island. Independent gubernatorial candidate (and former Republican U.S. Senator) Lincoln Chafee courted trouble when he discussed former Red Sox ace Curt Schilling in an interview with John DePetro of WPRO on Tuesday. "I just remember his own teammates didn't like him," Chafee said of Schilling. "They thought he was a bit of a salesman. I remember one of his teammates said he painted his sock, the bloody sock, that he painted it. ... >>More
Fact-checking ABC News’ “This Week”
Jul 27th
The economy was a major topic on ABC News' This Week. U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said that the economy is recovering, and we know this because "We've seen six months of positive job growth by the private sector." We checked the numbers and found job growth has been positive this year, so we rated his statement True. We also looked into a statement from conservative pundit Stephen Hayes about the Obama administration's plan to roll back the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy. Hayes said, "these so-called wealthy, most of them are small-business owners." We looked into the numbers ... >>More
The Right Reason For Saving Social Security
Jul 27th
Brookings The Right Reason For Saving Social Security As a member of the Presidents Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, which is charged with producing a bipartisan plan to rein in future budget deficits, I get to hear the favorite deficit reduction schemes of friends, acquaintances and strangers. A surprising number lead with Social Security. [...]
Leticia Van de Putte: Says Bill White's program to bring dropouts back to school was "so successful that almost every city in our state has replicated" it.
Jul 27th
The Truth-o-Meter says: Half-True | Leticia Van de Putte says Bill White's efforts to cut dropout rate replicated by almost every Texas city
State Sen. Leticia Van de Putte praised gubernatorial candidate Bill White, a fellow Democrat, for his efforts to get dropouts back into classrooms during a speech last month to her party's convention in Corpus Christi. He "went door to door in Houston luring and asking those dropouts to come back to school," she said June 25. "Those programs were so successful that almost every city in our state has replicated what Bill White started." We wondered whether the former mayor of Houston's education initiative had really become so widespread. In response to our inquiry, Van de ...
>> MoreThe Message Machine: Colorado edition
Jul 26th
We've been fact-checking political campaign ads in partnership with NPR. In our latest installment, we looked at ads from the Republican primary in the U.S. Senate race in Colorado. The candidates are Jane Norton, a former lieutenant governor who got early backing from Republican Party leaders, and Ken Buck, a district attorney who has received backing from the tea party movement. Here's what two bare-knuckled ads had to say: "Our country is at the brink," a narrator says in an ad from Americans for Job Security. "Colorado families and workers need relief -- yet Jane Norton supported the largest tax ... >>More
The Afghan War Diaries
Jul 26th
thinkprogress.org NATIONAL SECURITY The Afghan War Diaries Yesterday afternoon, the whistle-blower organization WikiLeaks.org released a massive archive of 92,000 classified reports revealing an “unvarnished, ground-level picture of the war in Afghanistan that is in many respects more grim than the official portrayal.” The archive, containing reports from the ground written during a six-year period from [...]
What The Wikileak Means For The Afghanistan War
Jul 26th
Posted by MICHAEL CROWLEY Sunday, July 25, 2010 The Obama White House is furious this morning about the massive leak of military documents chronicling the unvarnished truth about the Afghanistan war. At the same time, though, there must be a certain sense of relief around the West Wing. When they first learned that the whistleblower [...]
Cap and trade legislation stalls in the Senate
Jul 26th
Events last week prompted us to move the meter on one of President Obama's top promises. During the 2008 presidential campaign, Obama said he would create a cap and trade system with goals to reduce global warming. Don't know what cap and trade is? The idea is that the government sets a limit on how much carbon different companies, such as electric utilities or manufacturers, can emit -- that's the cap. The government then issues permits for emissions to companies and allows them to buy and sell the permits as needed so they can conduct business -- that's the trade. ... >>More
John King: "Sometime in the next decade, there will be more Latinos in the state of Texas than there are Anglos. That will happen sometime in the next five to eight to ten years."
Jul 26th
The Truth-o-Meter says: True | CNN's John King says Latinos will outnumber Anglos in Texas in five to 10 years
Setting up a question to San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro, CNN reporter John King mentioned the changing population of Texas. "Sometime in the next decade, there will be more Latinos in the state of Texas than there are Anglos," King said on the July 13 edition of "John King, USA." "That will happen sometime in the next five to eight to 10 years." So cable news reporters are now demographers? Meryl Conant, senior publicist for CNN Washington, told us King based his prediction on information from a San Antonio Express-News news article and the San Antonio-based ...
>> MoreWendy Davis: "We caught (the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality) lying to us about the results of air quality studies in the Barnett Shale."
Jul 25th
The Truth-o-Meter says: Half-True | Wendy Davis says the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) lied about air quality tests in the Barnett Shale
Speaking at the Texas Democratic convention last month, Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth, lambasted the state agency responsible for approving permits to pollute the air. "The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality — what a joke," she said during a speech to delegates June 26. "In my district, we caught them lying to us about the results of air quality studies in the Barnett Shale. They are playing with the health and safety of our communities, and we are going to tell them that is not acceptable." First, the basics: When we contacted Davis to elaborate on her ...
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